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DRIFT 


FROM TWO SHORES 


BRET HARTE 



BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(ZTfce Ktoerstfce Press, CambrtUffe 


UBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooler deceived 

mat 21 jyub 

^ Copyri^nt Emr> 

/00 C 

CLASS' d, AAc, No, 

?t 

CORY A. 


TZ 3 

, U 2 5*^ 

A 

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COPYRIGHT 1S78 BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


CONTENTS 


• 

I. 

The Man on the Beach ... .3 

Two Saints of the Foot-hills ... 57 

Jinny 77 

Roger Catron’s Friend 91 

Who was my Quiet Friend? .... 114 
A Ghost of the Sierras 128 


The Hoodlum Band (a Condensed Novel) . . 141 

H. 


The Man whose Yoke was not easy . . .169 

My Friend, the Tramp 180 

The Man from Solano 198 

The Office Seeker 210 

A Sleeping-car Experience . . . 232 

Five o’Clock in the Morning . . . 243 

With the Entries 254 


DRIFT FROM TWO SHORES. 


I. 

THE MAN ON THE BEACH. 


L 

E lived beside a river that emptied into a 
great ocean. The narrow strip of land 
that lay between him and the estuary was 
covered at high tide by a shining film of water, at 
low tide with the cast-up offerings of sea and shore. 
Logs yet green, and saplings washed away from in- 
land banks, battered fragments of wrecks and orange 
crates of bamboo, broken into tiny rafts yet odorous 
with their lost freight, lay in long successive curves, 
■ — the fringes and overlappings of the sea. At high 
noon the shadow of a sea-gull’s wing, or a sudden 
flurry and gray squall of sand-pipers, themselves 
but shadows, was all that broke the monotonous 
glare of the level sands. 

He had lived there alone for a twelvemonth. 
Although but a few miles from a thriving settle- 
ment, during that time his retirement had never 
been intruded upon, his seclusion remained un* 




6 Drift from Two Shores. 

broken. In any other community he might have 
been the subject of rumor or criticism, but the 
miners at Camp Rogue and the traders at Trinidad 
Head, themselves individual and eccentric, were 
profoundly indifferent to all other forms of eccen- 
tricity or heterodoxy that did not come in contact 
with their own. And certainly there was no form 
of eccentricity less aggressive than that of a her- 
mit, had they chosen to give him that appellation. 
But they did not even do that, probably from lack 
of interest or perception. To the various traders 
who supplied his small wants he was known as 
“ Kernel,” “ Judge,” and “ Boss.” To the general 
public “ The Man on the Beach ” was considered a 
sufficiently distinguishing title. His name, his oc- 
cupation, rank, or antecedents, nobody cared to 
inquire. Whether this arose from a fear of recip- 
rocal inquiry and interest, or from the profound in- 
difference before referred to, I cannot say. 

He did not look like a hermit. A man yet young, 
erect, well-dressed, clean-shaven, with a low voice, 
and a smile half melancholy, half cynical, was 
scarcely the conventional idea of a solitary. His 
dwelling, a rude improvement on a fisherman’s 
cabin, had all the severe exterior simplicity of fron- 
tier architecture, but within it was comfortable 
fcnd wholesome. Three rooms — a kitchen, a living* 
’oom, and a bedroom — were all it contained 


The Man on the Beach . 


7 


He had lived there long enough to see the dul] 
monotony of one season lapse into the dull monot- 
ony of the other. The bleak northwest trade- 
winds had brought him mornings of staring sun- 
light and nights of fog and silence. The warmer 
southwest trades had brought him clouds, rain, and 
the transient glories of quick grasses and odorous 
beach blossoms. But summer or winter, wet or 
dry season, on one side rose always the sharply de- 
fined hills with their changeless background of 
evergreens ; on the other side stretched always the 
illimitable ocean as sharply defined against the hori- 
zon, and as unchanging in its hue. The onset of 
spring and autumn tides, some changes among his 
feathered neighbors, the footprints of certain wild 
animals along the river’s bank, and the hanging 
out of parti-colored signals from the wooded hill- 
side far inland, helped him to record the slow 
months. On summer afternoons, when the sun 
sank behind a bank of fog that, moving solemnly 
shoreward, at last encompassed him and blotted out 
sea and sky, his isolation was complete. The damp 
gray sea that flowed above and around and about 
him always seemed to shut out an intangible world 
beyond, and to be the only real presence. The 
booming of breakers scarce a dozen rods from his 
dwelling was but a vague and unintelligible sound, 
wr the echo of something past forever. Every 


3 


Drift from Two Shores. 


morning when the sun tore away the misty curtain 
he awoke, dazed and bewildered, as upon a new 
world. The first sense of oppression over, he came 
to love at last this subtle spirit of oblivion ; and at 
night, when its cloudy wings were folded over his 
cabin, he would sit alone with a sense of security 
he had never felt before. On such occasions he 
was apt to leave his door open, and listen as for 
footsteps ; for what might not come to him out of 
this vague, nebulous world beyond? Perhaps even 
the , — for this strange solitary was not insane nor 
visionary. He was never in spirit alone. For 
night and day, sleeping or waking, pacing the 
beach or crouching over his driftwood fire, a wom- 
an’s face was always before him, — the face for 
whose sake and for cause of whom he sat there 
alone. He saw it in the morning sunlight ; it was 
her white hands that were lifted from the crested 
breakers ; it was the rustling of her skirt when the 
sea wind swept through the beach grasses ; it was 
the loving whisper of her low voice when the long 
waves sank and died among the sedge and rushes. 
She was as omnipresent as sea and sky and level 
sand. Hence, when the fog wiped them away, she 
seemed to draw closer to him in the darkness. On 
one or two more gracious nights in midsummer, 
when the influence of the fervid noonday sun was 
•till felt on the heated sands, the warm breath of 


The Man on the Beach. 9 

the fog touched his cheek as if it had been hers, 
and the tears started to his eyes. 

Before the fogs came — for he arrived there in 
winter — he had found surcease and rest in the 
steady glow of a light-house upon the little prom- 
ontory a league below his habitation. Even on 
the darkest nights, and in the tumults of storm, it 
spoke to him of a patience that was enduring and 
a steadfastness that was immutable. Later on he 
found a certain dumb companionship in an uprooted 
tree, which, floating down the river, had stranded 
hopelessly upon his beach, but in the evening had 
again drifted away. Rowing across the estuary a 
day or two afterward, he recognized the tree again 
from a “ blaze ” of the settler’s axe still upon its 
trunk. He was not surprised a week later to find 
the same tree in the sands before his dwelling, or 
that the next morning it should be again launched 
on its purposeless wanderings. And so, impelled by 
wind or tide, but always haunting his seclusion, he 
would meet it voyaging up the river at the flood, or 
see it tossing among the breakers on the bar, but 
always with the confidence of its returning sooner 
or later to an anchorage beside him. After the 
third month of his self-imposed exile, he was forced 
into a more human companionship, that was brief 
but regular. He was obliged to have menial as- 
sistance. While he might have eaten his bread “in 


10 


Drift from Two Shores. 


sorrow ” carelessly and mechanically, if *t had been 
prepared for him, the occupation of cooking his 
own food brought the vulgarity and materialness 
of existence so near to his morbid sensitiveness 
that he could not eat the meal he had himself pre- 
pared. He did not yet wish to die, and when star- 
vation or society seemed to be the only alternative, 
he chose the latter. An Indian woman, so hideous 
as tc scarcely suggest humanity, at stated times 
performed for him these offices. When she did not 
come, which was not infrequent, he did not eat. 

Such was the mental and physical condition of 
the Man on the Beach on the 1st of January, 1869. 

It was a still, bright day, following a week of 
rain and wind. Low down the horizon still lin- 
gered a few white flecks — the flying squadrons of 
the storm — as vague as distant sails. Southward 
the harbor bar whitened occasionally but lazily ; 
even the turbulent Pacific swell stretched its length 
wearily upon the shore. And toiling from the set- 
tlement over the low sand dunes, a carriage at last 
halted half a mile from the solitary’s dwelling. 

“ I reckon ye ’ll hev to git out here,” said the 
driver, pulling up to breathe his panting horses. 
% Ye can’t git any nigher.” 

There was a groan of execration from the in- 
terior of the vehicle, a hysterical little shriek, and 


The Man on the Beach. 


11 


one or two shrill expressions of feminine disappro- 
bation, but the driver moved not. At last a mas- 
culine head expostulated from the window : “ Look 
here ; you agreed to take us to the house. Why, 
it ’s a mile away at least ! ” 

“Thar, or tharabouts, I reckon,” said the driver, 
coolly crossing his legs on the box. 

“ It ’s no use talking ; I can never walk through 
this sand and horrid glare,” said a female voice 
quickly and imperatively. Then, apprehensively, 
“ Well, of all the places ! ” 

“ Well, I never I ” 

“ This does exceed everything.” 

“ It ’s really too idiotic for anything.” 

It was noticeable that while the voices betrayed 
the difference of age and sex, they bore a singular 
resemblance to each other, and a certain querulous- 
ness of pitch that was dominant. 

“ I reckon I ’ve gone about as fur as I allow to 
go with them hosses,” continued the driver sugges- 
tively, “ and as time ’s vallyble, ye ’d better onload.” 

u The wretch does not mean to leave us here 
•ilone?” said a female voice in shrill indignation. 
“ You ’ll wait for us, driver?” said a masculine voice, 
confidently. 

“ How long ? ” asked the driver. 

There was a hurried consultation within. The 
vords “ Might send us packing ! ” “ May take al. 


12 


Drift from Two Shores. 

night to get him to listen to reason, ” “Bother! 
whole thing over in ten minutes,” came from the 
window. The driver meanwhile had settled him- 
self back in his seat, and whistled in patient con- 
tempt of a fashionable fare that did n’t know its own 
mind nor destination. Finally, the masculine head 
was thrust out, and, with a certain potential air of 
judicially ending a difficulty, said: — 

“ You ’re to follow us slowly, and put up youi 
horses in the stable or barn until we want you.” 

An ironical laugh burst from the driver. “ Oh, 
yes — in the stable or barn — in course. But, my 
eyes sorter failin’ me, mebbee, now, some ev you 
younger folks will kindly pint out the stable or barn 
of the Kernel’s. Woa ! — will y e ? — woa ! Give me 
a chance to pick out that there barn or stable to 
put ye in ! ” This in arch confidence to the horses, 
who had not moved. 

Here the previous speaker, rotund, dignified, and 
elderly, alighted indignantly, closely followed by the 
rest of the party, two ladies and a gentleman. One 
of the ladies was past the age, but not the fashion, 
of youth, and her Parisian dress clung over her 
wasted figure and well-bred bones artistically if not 
gracefully ; the younger lady, evidently her daugh- 
ter, was crisp and pretty, and carried off the aquiline 
nose and aristocratic emaciation of her mother with 
certain piquancy and a dash that was charming 


The Man on the Beach. 13 

The gentleman was young, thin, with the family 
characteristics, but otherwise indistinctive. 

With one accord they all faced directly toward 
the spot indicated by the driver’s whip. Nothing 
but the bare, bleak, rectangular outlines of the cabin 
of the Man on the Beach met their eyes. All else 
was a desolate expanse, unrelieved by any structure 
higher than the tussocks of scant beach grass that 
clothed it. They were so utterly helpless that the 
driver’s derisive laughter gave way at last to good 
humor and suggestion. “ Look yer,” he said finally, 
“ I don’t know ez it ’s your fault you don’t know 
this kentry ez well ez you do Yurup ; so I ’ll drag 
this yer team over to Robinson’s on the river, give 
the horses a bite, and then meander down this yer 
ridge, and wait for ye. Ye ’ll see me from the Ker- 
nel’s.” And without waiting for a reply, he swung 
his horses’ heads toward the river, and rolled away. 

The same querulous protest that had come from 
the windows arose from the group, but vainly. 
Then followed accusations and recrimination. “ It ’s 
your fault ; you might have written, and had him 
meet us at the settlement.” “ You wanted to take 
him by surprise ! ” “I did n’t. “ You know if I ’d 
written that we were coming, he ’d have taken good 
care to run away from us.” “ Yes, to some more 
inaccessible place.” “ There can be none worse than 
tfiis,” etc., etc. But it was so clearly evident that 


14 


Drift from Two Shores. 


nothing was to be done but to go forward, that even 
in the midst of their wrangling they straggled on in 
Indian file toward the distant cabin, sinking ankle- 
deep in the yielding sand, punctuating their verbal 
altercation with sighs, and only abating it at a 
scream from the elder lady. 

“ Where ’s Maria ? ” 

“ Gone on ahead ! ” grunted the younger gentle- 
man, in a bass voice, so incongruously large for him 
that it seemed to have been a ventriloquistic contri- 
bution by somebody else. 

It was too true. Maria, after adding her pun- 
gency to the general conversation, had darted on 
ahead. But alas ! that swift Camilla, after scouring 
the plain some two hundred feet with her demi- 
train, came to grief on an unbending tussock and sat 
down, panting but savage. As they plodded wearily 
toward her, she bit her red lips, smacked them on 
her cruel little white teeth like a festive and spright- 
ly ghoul, and lisped : — 

“ You do look so like guys ! For all the world 
like those English shopkeepers we met on the Righi, 
foing the three-guinea excursion in their Sunday 
clothes !” 

Certainly the spectacle of these exotically plumed 
bipeds, whose fine feathers were already bedrabbled 
by sand and growing limp in the sea breeze, was 
lomewhat dissonant with the rudeness of sea and 


The Man on the Beach. 


15 


3ky and shore. A few gulls screamed at them ; a 
loon, startled from the lagoon, arose shrieking and 
protesting, with painfully extended legs, in obvious 
burlesque of the younger gentleman. The elder 
lady felt the justice of her gentle daughter’s criti- 
cism, and retaliated with simple directness : — 

“ Your skirt is ruined, your hair is coming down, 
your hat is half off your head, and your shoes — in 
Heaven’s name, Maria ! what have you done with 
your shoes ?” 

Maria had .exhibited a slim stockinged foot from 
under her skirt. It was scarcely three fingers broad, 
with an arch as patrician as her nose. “ Somewhere 
between here and the carriage,” she answered ; 
“ Dick can run back and find it, while he is looking 
for your brooch, mamma. Dick ’s so obliging.” 

The robust voice of Dick thundered, but the 
wasted figure of Dick feebly ploughed its way back, 
and returned with the missing buskin. 

“ I may as well carry them in my hand like the 
market girls at Saumur, for we have got to wade 
soon,” said Miss Maria, sinking her own terrors in 
the delightful contemplation of the horror in her 
parent’s face, as she pointed to a shining film of 
water slowly deepening in a narrow swale in the 
lands between them and the cabin. 

“ It ’s the tide,” said the elder gentleman. “ If we 
intend to go on we must hasten ; permit me, my 


16 


Drift from Two Shores. 


dear madam,” and before she could reply he had 
lifted the astounded matron in his arms, and made 
gallantly for the ford. The gentle Maria cast an 
ominous eye on her brother, who, with manifest re- 
luctance, performed for her the same office. But 
that acute young lady kept her eyes upon the pre- 
ceding figure of the elder gentlemau, and seeing him 
suddenly and mysteriously disappear to his armpits, 
unhesitatingly threw herself from her brother’s pro- 
tecting arms, — an action which instantly precipi- 
tated him into the water, — and paddled hastily to 
the opposite bank, where she eventually assisted in 
pulling the elderly gentleman out of the hollow into 
which he had fallen, and in rescuing her mother, 
who floated helplessly on the surface, upheld by 
her skirts, like a gigantic and variegated water-lily. 
Dick followed with a single gaiter. In another 
minute they were safe on the opposite bank. 

The elder lady gave way to tears ; Maria laughed 
hysterically ; Dick mingled a bass oath with the 
now audible surf ; the elder gentleman, whose florid 
face the salt water had bleached, and whose dig- 
nity seemed to have been washed away, accounted 
for both by saying he thought it was a quicksand. 

“ It might have been,” said a quiet voice behind 
them ; “ you should have followed the sand dunes 
half a mile further to the estuary.” 

They turned instantly at the voice. It was tha 


The Man on the Beach. 


17 


of the Man on the Beach. They all rose to their 
feet and uttered together, save one, the single ex- 
clamation, “James!” The elder gentleman said 
“ Mr. North,” and, with a slight resumption of his 
former dignity, buttoned his coat over his damp 
shirt front. 

There was a silence, in which the Man on the 
Beach looked gravely down upon them. If they 
had intended to impress him by any suggestion of 
a gay, brilliant, and sensuous world beyond in their 
own persons, they had failed, and they knew it. 
Keenly alive as they had always been to external 
prepossession, they felt that they looked forlorn 
and ludicrous, and that the situation lay in his 
hands. The elderly lady again burst into tears of 
genuine distress, Maria colored over her cheek- 
bones, and Dick stared at the ground in sullen dis- 
quiet. 

“ You had better get up,” said the Man on the 
Beach, after a moment’s thought, “ and come up to 
the cabin. I cannot offer you a change of gar- 
ments, but you can dry them by the fire.” 

They all rose together, and again said in chorus, 
u James ! ” but this time with an evident effort to 
recall some speech or action previously resolved 
upon and committed to memory. The elder lady 
got so far as to clasp her hands and add, “ You 
have not forgotten us — James, oh, James ! ” the 


18 


Drift from Two Shores . 


younger gentleman to attempt a brusque “ Why, 
Jim, old boy,” that ended in querulous incoherence ; 
the young lady to cast a half-searching, half-co- 
quettish look at him; and the old gentleman to 
begin, “ Our desire, Mr. North ” — but the effort 
was futile. Mr. James North, standing before 
them with folded arms, looked from the one to the 
other. 

“ I have not thought much of you for a twelve- 
month,” he said, quietly, “ but I have not forgotten 
you. Come ! ” 

He led the way a few steps in advance, they fol- 
lowing silently. In this brief interview they felt 
he had resumed the old dominance and independ- 
ence, against which they had rebelled ; more than 
that, in this half failure of their first concerted ac- 
tion they had changed their querulous bickerings 
to a sullen distrust of each other, and walked 
moodily apart as they followed James North into 
his house. A fire blazed brightly on the hearth , 
a few extra seats were quickly extemporized from 
boxes and chests, and the elder lady, with the skirt 
of her dress folded over her knees, — looking not 
unlike an exceedingly overdressed jointed doll, — 
dried her flounces and her tears together. Miss 
Maria took in the scant appointments of the house 
in one single glance, and then fixed her eyes upon 
James North, who, the least concerned of the 


The Man on the Beach. L9 

party, stood before them, grave and patiently ex- 
pectant. 

“ Well,” began the elder lady in a high key, 
“after all this worry and trouble you have given 
us, James, have n’t you anything to say ? Do you 
know — have you the least idea what you are do- 
ing? what egregious folly you are committing? 
what everybody is saying ? Eh ? Heavens and 
earth 1 — do you know who I am ? ” 

“You are my father’s brother’s widow, Aunt 
Mary,” returned James, quietly. “If I am com- 
mitting any folly it only concerns myself ; if I 
cared for what people said I should not be here ; if 
I loved society enough to appreciate its good re- 
port I should stay with it.” 

“ But they say you have run away from society 
to pine alone for a worthless creature — a woman 
who has used you, as she has used and thrown away 
others — a” — 

“ A woman,” chimed in Dick, who had thrown 
himself on James’s bed while his patent leathers 
were drying, “ a woman that all the fellers know 
never intended ” — here, however, he met James 
North’s eye, and muttering something about “ whole 
thing being too idiotic to talk about,” relapsed into 
silence. 

“ You know,” continued Mrs. North, “ that while 
we and all our set shut our eyes to your very obvi- 


20 


Drift from Two Shores . 


dus relations with that woman, and while I myself 
often spoke of it to others as a simple flirtation, and 
averted a scandal for your sake, and when the 
climax was reached, and she herself gave you an 
opportunity to sever your relations, and nobody 
need have been wiser — and she ’d have had all the 
blame — and it ’s only what she ’s accustomed to — 
you — you ! you, James North ! — you must non- 
sensically go, and, by this extravagant piece of 
idiocy and sentimental tomfoolery, let everybody 
see how serious the whole affair was, and how deep 
it hurt you ! and here in this awful place, alone — 
where you ’re half drowned to get to it, and are 
willing to be wholly drowned to get away! Oh, 
don’t talk to me ! I won’t hear it — it ’s just too 
idiotic for anything ! ” 

The subject of this outburst neither spoke nor 
moved a single muscle. 

“ Your aunt, Mr. North, speaks excitedly,” said 
ihe elder gentleman ; “ yet I think she does not 
overestimate the unfortunate position in which your 
odd fancy places you. I know nothing of the rea- 
sons that have impelled you to this step; I only 
know that the popular opinion is that the cause is 
utterly inadequate. You are still young, with a 
future before you. I need not say how your pres- 
ent conduct may imperil that. If you expected to 
achieve any good — even to your own satisfaction 
— by this conduct ” — 


The Man on the Beach. 21 

“ Yes — if there was anything to be gained by 
it ! ” broke in Mrs. North. 

“ If you ever thought she ’d come back ! — but 
that kind of woman don’t. They must have change. 
Why ” — began Dick suddenly, and as suddenly 
lying down again. 

“ Is this all you have come to say ? ” asked 
James North, after a moment’s patient silence, 
looking from one to the other. 

“ All ? ” screamed Mrs. North ; “ is it not 
enough ? ” 

“ Not to change my mind nor my residence at 
present,” replied North, coolly. 

“ Do you mean to continue this folly all your 
life?” 

“ And have a coroner’s inquest, and advertise- 
ments and all the facts in the papers ? ” 

“ And have her read the melancholy details, and 
know that you were faithful and she was not ? ” 

This last shot was from the gentle Maria, who 
bit her lips as it glanced from the immovable man. 

“I believe there is nothing more to say,” con- 
tinued North, quietly. “I am willing to believe 
your intentions are as worthy as your zeal. Let 
us say no more,” he added, with grave weariness ; 
* the tide is rising, and your coachman is signaling 
you from the bank.” 

There was no mistaking the unshaken positive* 


22 


Drift from Two Shores . 


ness of the man, which was all the more noticeable 
from its gentle but utter indifference to the wishes 
of the party. He turned his back upon them as 
they gathered hurriedly around the elder gentle- 
man, while the words, “ He cannot be in his right 
mind,” “ It ’s your duty to do it,” “ It ’s sheer in- 
sanity,” “ Look at his eye ! ” all fell unconsciously 
upon his ear. 

“ One word more, Mr. North,” said the elder 
gentleman, a little portentously, to conceal an evi- 
dent embarrassment. “ It may be that your con- 
duct might suggest to minds more practical than 
your own the existence of some aberration of the 
intellect — some temporary mania — that might 
force your best friends into a quasi-legal attitude 
of” — 

“ Declaring me insane,” interrupted James North, 
with the slight impatience of a man more anxious 
to end a prolix interview than to combat an argu- 
ment. “ I think differently. As my aunt’s lawyer, 
you know that within the last year 1 have deeded 
most of my property to her and her family. I can- 
not believe that so shrewd an adviser as Mr. Ed 
rnund Carter would ever permit proceedings that 
would invalidate that conveyance.” 

Maria burst into a laugh of such wicked grati- 
fication that James North, for the first time, raised 
his eyes with something of interest to her face, 


The Man on the Beach. 


23 


She colored under them, but returned his glance 
with another like a bayonet flash. The party 
slowly moved toward the door, James North fol- 
lowing. 

“ Then this is your final answer ? ” asked Mrs. 
North, stopping imperiously on the threshold. 

“ I beg your pardon ? ” queried North, half ab- 
stractedly. 

“ Your final answer ?” 

“ Oh, certainly.” 

Mrs. North flounced away a dozen rods in rage. 
This was unfortunate for North. It gave them the 
final attack in detail. Dick began : “ Come along ! 
You know you can advertise for her with a per- 
sonal down there, and the old woman would n’t 
object as long as you were careful and put in an 
appearance now and then ! ” 

As Dick limped away, Mr. Carter thought, in 
confidence, that the whole matter — even to suit 
Mr. North’s sensitive nature — might be settled 
there. “ She evidently expects you to return. 
My opinion is that she never left San Francisco. 
You can’t tell anything about these women.” 

With this last sentence on his indifferent ear, 
James North seemed to be left free. Maria had 
rejoined her mother ; but as they crossed the ford, 
tnd an intervening sand-hill hid the others from 
light, that piquant young lady suddenly appeared 
on the hill and stood before him. 


24 Drift from Two Shores. 

“And you’re not coming back?” she said di- 
rectly. 

“No” 

“ Never ? ” 

“ I cannot say.” 

“ Tell me ! what is there about some women to 
make men love them so ? ” 

“ Love,” replied No^th, quietly. 

“ No, it cannot be — it is not that ! ” 

North looked over the hill and round the hill, 
and looked bored. 

“ Oh, I ’m going now. But one moment, Jem ! I 
did n’t want to come. They dragged me here. 
Good-by.” 

She raised a burning face and eyes to his. He 
leaned forward and imprinted the perfunctory, cous- 
inly kiss of the period upon her cheek. 

“ Not that way,” she said angrily, clutching his 
wrists with her long, thin fingers; “you shan’t 
kiss me in that way, James North.” 

With the faintest, ghost-like passing of a twinkle 
in the corners of his sad eyes, he touched his lips 
to hers. With the contact, she caught him round 
the neck, pressed her burning lips and face to his 
forehead, his cheeks, the very curves of his chin 
and throat, and — with a laugh was gone. 


The Man on the Beach. 


25 


n. 

Had the kinsfolk of James North any hope that 
Iheir visit might revive some lingering desire he 
still combated to enter once more the world they 
represented, that hope would have soon died 
Whatever effect this episode had upon the solitary, 
- — and he had become so self-indulgent of his sor- 
row, and so careless of all that came between him 
and it, as to meet opposition with profound indiffer- 
ence, — the only appreciable result was a greater 
attraction for the solitude that protected him, and 
he grew even to love the bleak shore and barren 
sands that had proved so inhospitable to others. 
There was a new meaning to the roar of the surges, 
an honest, loyal sturdiness in the unchanging per- 
sistency of the uncouth and blustering trade-winds, 
and a mute fidelity in the shining sands, treacher- 
ous to all but him. With such bandogs to lie in 
wait for trespassers, should he not be grateful ? 

If no bitterness was awakened by the repeated 
avowal of the unfaithfulness of the woman he loved, 
it was because he had always made the observa- 
tion and experience of others give way to the dom- 
inance of his own insight. No array of contradic- 
tory facts ever shook his belief or unbelief ; like 
all egotists, he accepted them as truths controlled 


26 


Drift from Two Shores. 


by a larger truth of which he alone was cogni- 
zant. His simplicity, which was but another form 
of his egotism, was so complete as to baffle ordi- 
nary malicious cunning, and so he was spared the 
experience and knowledge that come to a lower 
nature, and help debase it. 

Exercise and the stimulus of the few wants that 
sent him hunting or fishing kept up his physical 
health. Never a lover of rude freedom or outdoor 
life, his sedentary predilections and nice tastes 
kept him from lapsing into barbarian excess ; never 
a sportsman, he followed the chase with no fever- 
ish exaltation. Even dumb creatures found out his 
secret, and at times, stalking moodily over the up- 
land, the brown deer and elk would cross his path 
without fear or molestation, or, idly lounging in his 
canoe within the river bar, flocks of wild fowl 
would settle within stroke of his listless oar. And 
so the second winter of his hermitage drew near 
its close, and with it came a storm that passed into 
local history, and is still remembered. It uprooted 
giant trees along the river, and with them the tiny 
rootlets of the life he was idly fostering. 

The morning had been fitfully turbulent, the 
wind veering several points south and west, with 
suspicious lulls, unlike the steady onset of the reg- 
ular southwest trades. High overhead the long 
tnanes of racing cirro stratus streamed with flying 


The Man on the Beach. 


27 


gulls and hurrying water-fowl ; plover piped inces- 
santly, and a flock of timorous sand-pipers sought 
the low ridge of his cabin, while a wrecking crew 
of curlew hastily manned the uprooted tree that 
tossed wearily beyond the bar. By noon the flying 
clouds huddled together in masses, and then were 
suddenly exploded in one vast opaque sheet over 
the heavens. The sea became gray, and suddenly 
wrinkled and old. There was a dumb, half-articu- 
late cry in the air, — rather a confusion of many 
sounds, as of the booming of distant guns, the 
clangor of a bell, the trampling of many waves, 
the creaking of timbers and soughing of leaves, 
that sank and fell ere you could yet distinguish 
them. And then it came on to blow. For two 
hours it blew strongly. At the time the sun should 
have set the wind had increased ; in fifteen min- 
utes darkness shut down, even the white sands 
lost their outlines, and sea and shore and sky lay 
m the grip of a relentless and aggressive power. 

Within his cabin, by the leaping light of his gusty 
fire, North sat alone. His first curiosity passed, the 
turmoil without no longer carried his thought be- 
yond its one converging centre. She had come 
to him on the wings of the storm, even as she had 
been borne to him on the summer fog-cloud. Now 
and then the wind shook the cabin, but he heeded 
■t not. He had no fears for its safety ; it presented 


28 


Drift from Two Shores. 


its low gable to the full fury of the wind that year 
by year had piled, and even now was piling, pro- 
tecting buttresses of sand against it. With each 
succeeding gust it seemed to nestle more closely to 
its foundations, in the whirl of flying sand that rat- 
tled against its roof and windows. It was nearly 
midnight when a sudden thought brought him to 
his feet. What if she were exposed to the fury of 
such a night as this? What could he do to help 
her? Perhaps even now, as he sat there idle, she — 
Hark ! was not that a gun — No ? Yes, surely ! 

He hurriedly unbolted the door, but the strength 
of the wind and the impact of drifted sand resisted 
his efforts. With a new and feverish strength pos- 
sessing him he forced it open wide enough to per- 
mit his egress, when the wind caught him as a feath- 
er, rolled him over and over, and then, grappling him 
again, held him down hard and fast against the drift. 
Unharmed, but unable to move, he lay there, hear- 
ing the multitudinous roar of the storm, but unable 
to distinguish one familiar sound in the savage med- 
ley. At last he managed to crawl flat on his face 
to the cabin, and, refastening the door, threw him- 
self upon his bed. 

He was awakened from a fitful dream of his 
Cousin Maria. She with a supernatural strength 
seemed to be holding the door against some unseen, 
unknown power that moaned and strove without 


The Man on the Beach. 


29 


and threw itself in despairing force against the 
cabin. He could see the lithe undulations of her 
form as she alternately yielded to its power, and 
again drew the door against it, coiling herself around 
the log-hewn doorpost with a hideous, snake-like 
suggestion. And then a struggle and a heavy blow, 
which shook the very foundations of the structure, 
awoke him. He leaped to his feet, and into an inch 
of water ! By the flickering firelight he could see 
it oozing and dripping from the crevices of the logs 
and broadening into a pool by the chimney. A 
scrap of paper torn from an envelope was floating 
idly on its current. Was it the overflow of the 
backed-up waters of the river? He was not left 
long in doubt. Another blow upon the gable of 
the house, and a torrent of spray leaped down the 
chimney, scattered the embers far and wide, and left 
him in utter darkness. Some of the spray clung 
to his lips. It was salt. The great ocean had 
beaten down the river bar and was upon him ! 

Was there aught to fly to? No! The cabin stood 
upon the highest point of the sand spit, and the low 
swale on one side crossed by his late visitors was a 
Beething mass of breakers, while the estuary behind 
him was now the ocean itself. There was nothing 
to do but to wait. 

The very helplessness of his situation was, to a 
man of his peculiar temperament, an element of 


30 


Drift from Two Shores. 


patient strength. The instinct of self-preservation 
was still strong in him, but he had no fear of death, 
nor, indeed, any presentiment of it ; yet if it came, 
it was an easy solution of the problem that had 
been troubling him, and it wiped off the slate ! He 
thought of the sarcastic prediction of his cousin, 
and death in the form that threatened him was the 
obliteration of his home and even the ground upon 
which it stood. There would be nothing to record, 
no stain could come upon the living. The instinct 
that kept him true to her would tell her how he 
died ; if it did not, it was equally well. And with 
this simple fatalism his only belief, this strange man 
groped his way to his bed, lay down, and in a few 
moments was asleep. The storm still roared with- 
out. Once again the surges leaped against the 
cabin, but it was evident that the wind was abating 
with the tide. 

When he awoke it was high noon, and the sun 
was shining brightly. For some time he lay in a 
delicious languor, doubting if he was alive or dead, 
but feeling through every nerve and fibre an ex- 
quisite sense of peace — a rest he had not known 
iince his boyhood — a relief he scarcely knew from 
what. He felt that he was smiling, and yet his 
pillow was wet with the tears that glittered still on 
his lashes. The sand blocking up his doorway 
Ve leaped lightly from his window. A few clouds 


The Man on the Beach. 


31 


wrere still sailing slowly in the heavens, the trailing 
plumes of a great benediction that lay on sea and 
shore. He scarcely recognized the familiar land- 
scape ; a new bar had been formed in the river, 
and a narrow causeway of sand that crossed the la- 
goon and marshes to the river bank and the upland 
trail seemed to bring him nearer to humanity again. 
He was conscious of a fresh, childlike delight in all 
this, and when, a moment later, he saw the old up- 
rooted tree, now apparently forever moored and im- 
bedded in the sand beside his cabin, he ran to it 
with a sense of joy. 

Its trailing roots were festooned with clinging 
sea-weed and the long, snaky, undulating stems of 
the sea-turnip; and fixed between two crossing 
roots was a bamboo orange crate, almost intact. 
As he walked toward it he heard a strange cry, un- 
like anything the barren sands had borne before. 
Thinking it might be some strange sea bird caught 
in the meshes of the sea-weed, he ran to the crate 
and looked within. It was half filled with sea- 
moss and feathery algae. The cry was repeated. 
He brushed aside the weeds with his hands. It 
was not a wounded sea bird, but a living human 
tfiild ! 

As he lifted it from its damp en wrappings lie 
saw that it was an infant eight or nine months old. 
How and when it had been brought there, or what 


82 


Drift from Two Shores. 


force had guided that elfish cradle to his very door 
he could not determine ; but it must have been left 
early, for it was quite warm, and its clothing al- 
most dried by the blazing morning sun. To wrap 
his coat about it, to run to his cabin with it, to 
start out again with the appalling conviction that 
nothing could be done for it there, occupied some 
moments. His nearest neighbor was Trinidad Joe, 
a “ logger,” three miles up the river. He remem- 
bered to have heard vaguely that he was a man of 
family. To half strangle the child with a few drops 
from his whisky flask, to extricate his canoe from 
the marsh, and strike out into the river with his 
waif, was at least to do something. In half an hour 
he had reached the straggling cabin and sheds of 
Trinidad Joe, and from the few scanty flowers that 
mingled with the brushwood fence, and a surplus 
of linen fluttering on the line, he knew that his 
surmise as to Trinidad Joe’s domestic establishment 
was correct. 

The door at which he knocked opened upon a 
neat, plainly-furnished room, and the figure of a 
buxom woman of twenty-five. With an awkward- 
ness new to him, North stammered out the circum- 
staaces of his finding the infant, and the object of 
his visit. Before he had finished, the woman, by 
some feminine trick, had taken the child from his 
aands ere he knew it ; and when he paused, out 


The Man on the Beach. 


33 


of breath, burst into a fit of laughter. North tried 
to laugh too, but failed. 

When the woman had wiped the tears from a 
pair of very frank blue eyes, and hidden two rows 
of very strong white teeth again, she said : — 
“Look yar ! You’re that looney sort o’ chap 
that lives alone over on the spit yonder, ain’t ye ? ” 
North hastened to admit all that the statement 
might imply. 

“And so ye’ve had a baby left ye to keep you 
company ? Lordy ! ” Here she looked as if dan- 
gerously near a relapse, and then added, as if in 
explanation of her conduct, — 

“ When I saw ye paddlin’ down here, — you thet 
ez shy as elk in summer, — I sez, ‘ He ’s sick.’ 
But a baby, — Oh, Lordy ! ” 

For a moment North almost hated her. A 
woman who, in this pathetic, perhaps almost tragic, 
picture saw only a ludicrous image, and that image 
himself, was of another race than that he had ever 
mingled with. Profoundly indifferent as he had al- 
ways been to the criticism of his equals in station, 
the mischievous laughter of this illiterate woman 
jarred upon him worse than his cousin’s sarcasm. 
It was with a little dignity that he pointed out the 
fact that at present the child needed nourishment. 
“ It ’s very young,” he added. 6 I ’m afraid it wants 
its natural nourishment.” 

3 


34 Drift from Two Shores . 

“ Whar is it to get it ? ” asked the woman. 

James North hesitated, and looked around. 
There should be a baby somewhere ! there must 
be a baby somewhere ! “ I thought that you,” he 

stammered, conscious of an awkward coloring, — 
“I — that is — I ” — He stopped short, for she 
was already cramming her apron into her mouth, 
too late, however, to stop the laugh that overflowed 
it. When she found her breath again, she said, — 

“ Look yar ! I don’t wonder they said you was 
looney ! I ’m Trinidad Joe’s onmarried darter, and 
the only woman in this house. Any fool could 
have told you that. Now, ef you can rig us up a 
baby out o’ them facts, I ’d like to see it done.” 

Inwardly furious but outwardly polite, James 
North begged her pardon, deplored his ignorance, 
and, with a courtly bow, made a movement to take 
the child. But the woman as quickly drew it away. 

“ Not much,” she said, hastily. “ What ! trust 
that poor critter to you? No, sir! Thar’s more 
ways of feeding a baby, young man, than you 
knows on, with all your ‘nat’ral nourishment/ 
But it looks kinder logy and stupid.” 

North freezingly admitted that he had given the 
infant whisky as a stimulant. 

“ You did ? Come, now, that ain’t so looney 
after all. Well, I’ll take the baby, and when Dad 
tomes home we’ll see what can be done.” 


The Man on the Beach. 


35 


North hesitated. His dislike of the woman was 
iitense, and yet he knew no one else, and the baby 
needed instant care. Besides, he began to see the 
udicrousness of his making a first call on his neigh- 
bors with a foundling to dispose of. She saw his 
hesitation, and said, — 

“ Ye don’t know me, in course. Well, I’m Bessy 
Robinson, Trinidad Joe Robinson’s daughter. I 
reckon Dad will give me a character if you want 
references, or any of the boys on the river.” 

“I’m only thinking of the trouble I’m giving 
you, Miss Robinson, I assure you. Any expense 
you may incur ” — 

“ Young man,” said Bessy Robinson, turning 
sharply on her heel, and facing him with her black 
brows a little contracted, “ if it comes to expenses, 
I reckon I ’ll pay you for that baby, or not take it 
at all. But I don’t know you well enough to quar- 
rel with you on sight. So leave the child to me, 
and, if you choose, paddle down here to-morrow, 
after sun up — the ride will do you good — and 
see it, and Dad thrown in. Good by ! ” and with 
one powerful but well-shaped arm thrown around 
the child, and the other crooked at the dimpled el- 
bow a little aggressively, she swept by James North 
and entered a bedroom, closing the door behind 
her. 

When Mr. James North reached his cabin it was 


36 Drift from Two Shores * 

dark. As he rebuilt his fire, and tried to rearrange 
the scattered and disordered furniture, and remove 
the debris of last night’s storm, he was conscious 
for the first time of feeling lonely. He did not 
miss the child. Beyond the instincts of humanity 
and duty he had really no interest in its welfare 
or future. He was rather glad to get rid of it, he 
would have preferred to some one else, and yet she 
looked as if she were competent. And then came 
the reflection that since the morning he had not 
once thought of the woman he loved. The like 
had never occurred in his twelvemonth solitude. 
So he set to work, thinking of her and of his sor- 
rows, until the word “ Looney,” in connection with 
his suffering, flashed across his memory. “ Loon- 
ey ! ” It was not a nice word. It suggested some- 
thing less than insanity ; something that might 
happen to a common, unintellectual sort of person. 
He remembered the loon, an ungainly feathered 
neighbor, that was popularly supposed to have lent 
its name to the adjective. Could it be possible 
that people looked upon him as one too hopelessly 
and uninterestingly afflicted for sympathy or com- 
panionship, too unimportant and common for even 
ridicule ; or was this but the coarse interpretation 
vf that vulgar girl ? 

Nevertheless, the next morning “ after sun up ’ 
James North was at Trinidad Joe’s cabin. That 


The Man on the Beach. 


37 


worthy proprietor himself — a long, lank man, with 
even more than the ordinary rural Western charac- 
teristics of ill health, ill feeding, and melancholy — 
met him on the bank, clothed in a manner and cos- 
tume that was a singular combination of the fron- 
tiersman and the sailor. When North had again 
related the story of his finding the child, Trinidad 
Joe pondered. 

“ It mout hev been stowed away in one of them 
crates for safe-keeping,” he said, musingly, “and 
washed off the deck o’ one o’ them Tahiti brigs 
goin’ down fer oranges. Leastways, it never got 
thar from these parts.” 

“ But it ’s a miracle its life was saved at all. It 
must have been some hours in the water.” 

“ Them brigs lays their course well inshore, and 
it was just mebbe a toss up if the vessel clawed off 
the reef at all ! And ez to the child keepin’ up, 
why, dog my skin ! that ’s just the contrariness o’ 
things,” continued Joe, in sententious cynicism. 
“ Ef an able seaman had fallen from the yard-arm 
that night he ’d been sunk in sight o’ the ship, and 
thet baby ez can’t swim a stroke sails ashore, sound 
asleep, with the waves for a baby-jumper.” 

North, who was half relieved, yet half awk- 
wardly disappointed at not seeing Bessy, ventured 
to ask how the child was doing. 

“ She ’ll do all right now,” said a frank voice 


38 


Drift from Two Shores. 

above, and, looking up, North discerned the round 
arms, blue eyes, and white teeth of the daughter at 
the window. “ She ’s all hunky, and has an appe- 
tite — ef she hez n’t got her 1 nat’ral nourishment.’ 
Come, Dad ! heave ahead, and tell the stranger 
what you and me allow we ’ll do, and don’t stand 
there swappin’ lies with him.” 

“ Weel,” said Trinidad Joe, dejectedly, “ Bess 
allows she can rar that baby and do justice to it. 
And I don’t say — though I’m her father — that 
she can’t. But when Bess wants anything she 
wants it all, clean down ; no half-ways nor leavin’s 
for her.” 

“ That ’s me ! go on, Dad — you ’re chippin’ in 
the same notch every time,” said Miss Robinson, 
with cheerful directness. 

“ Well, we agree to put the job up this way. 
We ’ll take the child and you’ll give us a paper or 
writin’ makin’ over all your right and title. How ’s 
that?” 

Without knowing exactly why he did, Mr. North 
objected decidedly. 

“ Do you think we won’t take good care of it ? K 
fisked Miss Bessy, sharply. 

“ That is not the question,” said North, a little 
notly. “ In the first place, the child is not mine to 
give. It has fallen into my hands as a trust, — the 
first hands that received it from its parents. I dc 


The Man on the Beach . 


89 


Hot think it right to allow any other hands to come 
between theirs and mine.” 

Miss Bessy left the window. In another mo- 
ment she appeared from the house, and, walking 
directly toward North, held out a somewhat sub- 
stantial hand. “ Good ! ” she said, as she gave his 
fingers an honest squeeze. “ You ain’t so looney 
after all. Dad, he ’s right ! He shan’t gin it up, 
but we ’ll go halves in it, he and me. He ’ll be 
father and I ’ll be mother ’til death do us part, or 
the reg’lar family turns up. Well — what do you 
say?” 

More pleased than he dared confess to himself 
with the praise of this common girl, Mr. James 
North assented. Then would he see the baby ? 
He would, and Trinidad Joe having already seen 
the baby, and talked of the baby, and felt the baby, 
and indeed had the baby offered to him in every 
way during the past night, concluded to give some 
of his valuable time to logging, and left them to- 
gether. 

Mr. North was obliged to admit that the baby 
was thriving. He moreover listened with polite 
interest to the statement that the baby’s eyes were 
hazel, like his own ; that it had five teeth ; that she 
was, for a girl of that probable age, a robust child ; 
*nd yet Mr. North lingered. Finally, with his 
•land on the door-lock, he turned to Bessy and 
*aid, — 


40 Drift from Two Shores. 

“ May I ask you an odd question, Miss Robin- 
ion?” 

“ Go on.” 

“ Why did you think I was — 4 looney * ? ” 

The frank Miss Robinson bent her head over the 
baby. 

“ Why?” 

“ Yes, why ? ” 

u Because you were looney.” 

“ Oh!” 

“ But ” — 

“ Yes ” — 

“ You ’ll get over it.” 

And under the shallow pretext of getting the 
baby’s food, she retired to the kitchen, where Mr. 
North had the supreme satisfaction of seeing her, 
as he passed the window, sitting on a chair with 
her apron over her head, shaking with laughter. 

For the next two or three days he did not visit 
the Robinsons, but gave himself up to past memo- 
ries. On the third day he had — it must be con- 
fessed not without some effort — brought himself 
into that condition of patient sorrow which had 
been his habit. The episode of the storm and the 
finding of the baby began to fade, as had faded the 
visit of his relatives. It had been a dull, wet day 
*nd he was sitting by his fire, when there came a 
lap at his door. “ Flora,” by which juvenescen 4 


The Man on the Beach . 


41 


Dame his aged Indian handmaid was known, usually 
announced her presence with an imitation of a cur- 
lew’s cry : it could not be her. He fancied he 
heard the trailing of a woman’s dress against the 
boards, and started to his feet, deathly pale, with a 
name upon his lips. But the door was impatiently 
thrown open, and showed Bessy Robinson ! And 
the baby! 

With a feeling of relief he could not understand, 
he offered her a seat. She turned her frank eyes 
on him curiously. 

“ You look skeert ! ” 

“ I was startled. You know I see nobody here ! ” 

“ Thet ’s so. But look yar, do you ever use a 
doctor?” 

Not clearly understanding her, he in turn asked, 
“ Why?” 

“ Cause you must rise up and get one now — 
thet ’s why. This yer baby of ours is sick. We 
don’t use a doctor at our house, we don’t beleeve 
in ’em, hain’t no call for ’em — but this yer baby’s 
parents mebbee did. So rise up out o’ that cheer 
and get one.” 

James North looked at Miss Robinson and rose, 
albeit a little in doubt, and hesitating. 

Miss Robinson saw it. “ I should n’t hev troub- 
led ye, nor ridden three mile to do it, if ther hed 
been any one else to send. But Dad ’s over at Eu- 


12 Drift from Two Shores. 

reka, buying logs, and I ’m alone. Hello — wher yet 
goin’ ? ” 

North had seized his hat and opened the door. 
u For a doctor,” he replied amazedly. 

“ Did ye kalkilate to walk six miles and back ? * 

“ Certainly — I have no horse.” 

“ But I have, and you ’ll find her tethered out- 
side. She ain’t much to look at, but when you 
strike the trail she ’ll go.” 

“But you — how will you return ?” 

“ Well,” said Miss Robinson, drawing her chair 
to the fire, taking off her hat and shawl, and warm- 
ing her knees by the blaze, “ I did n’t reckon to re- 
turn. You ’ll find me here when you come back 
with the doctor. Go ! Skedaddle quick.” 

She did not have to repeat the command. In 
another instant James North was in Miss Bessy’s 
seat, — a man’s dragoon saddle, — and pounding 
away through the sand. Two facts were in his 
mind : one was that he, the “ looney,” was about to 
open communication with the wisdom and contem- 
porary criticism of the settlement, by going for a 
doctor to administer to a sick and anonymous in- 
fant in his possession ; the other was that his soli- 
tary house was in the hands of a self-invited, large- 
imbed, illiterate, but rather comely young woman 
These facts he could not gallop away from, but to 
ois credit be it recorded that he fulfilled his mission 


The Man on the Beach. 4a 

zealously, if not coherently, to the doctor, who 
during the rapid ride gathered the idea that North 
had rescued a young married woman from drown- 
ing, who had since given birth to a child. 

The few words that set the doctor right when 
he arrived at the cabin might in any other com- 
munity have required further explanation, but Dr. 
Duchesne, an old army surgeon, was prepared for 
everything and indifferent to all. “ The infant,” 
he said, u was threatened with inflammation of the 
lungs ; at present there was no danger, but the 
greatest care and caution must be exercised. Par- 
ticularly exposure should be avoided.” “ That set- 
tles the whole matter, then,” said Bessy potentially. 
Both gentlemen looked their surprise. “ It means,” 
she condescended to further explain, “ that you 
must ride that filly home, wait for the old man to 
come to-morrow, and then ride back here with some 
of my duds, for thar *s no ‘ day-days ’ nor picknick- 
ing for that baby ontil she ’s better. And I reckon 
to stay with her ontil she is.” 

“ She certainly is unable to bear any exposure 
at present,” said the doctor, with an amused side 
glance at North’s perplexed face. “ Miss Robinson 
is right. I ’ll ride with you over the sands as far 
as^the trail.” 

“ I ’m afraid,” said North, feeling it incumbent 
upon him to say something, “ that you ’ll hardly 
find it as comfortable here as ” — 


44 Drift from Two Shores . 

“ I reckon not,” she said simply, “ but I did n’t 
expect much.” 

North turned a little wearily away. “ Good 
night,” she said suddenly, extending her hand, 
with a gentler smile of lip and eye than he had 
ever before noticed, “ good night — take good care 
of Dad.” 

The doctor and North rode together some 
moments in silence. North had another fact pre- 
sented to him, i. e. that he was going a-visiting, 
and that he had virtually abandoned his former 
life ; also that it would be profanation to think of 
his sacred woe in the house of a stranger. 

“I dare say,” said the doctor, suddenly, “you 
are not familiar with the type of woman Miss 
Bessy presents so perfectly. Your life has been 
spent among the conventional class.” 

North froze instantly at what seemed to be a 
probing of his secret. Disregarding the last sug- 
gestion, he made answer simply and truthfully that 
he had never met any Western girl like Bessy. 

“ That’s your bad luck,” said the doctor. “ You 
think her coarse and illiterate ? ” 

Mr. North had been so much struck with he? 
kindness that really he had not thought of it. 

“ That ’s not so,” said the doctor, curtly ; “ al- 
though even if you told her so she would not think 
*ny tho less of you — nor of herself. If she spoke 


The Man on the Beach . 


45 


rustic Greek instead af bad English, and wore a 
cestus in place of an ill-fitting corset, you’d swear 
she was a goddess. There’s your trail. Good 
night.” 


m. 

James North did not sleep well that night. He 
had taken Miss Bessy’s bedroom, at her suggestion, 
there being but two, and “ Dad never using sheets 
and not bein’ keerful in his habits.” It was neat, 
but that was all. The scant ornamentation was 
atrocious; two or three highly colored prints, a 
shell work-box, a ghastly winter bouquet of skele- 
ton leaves and mosses, a star-fish, and two china 
vases hideous enough to have been worshiped as 
Buddhist idols, exhibited the gentle recreation of 
the fair occupant, and the possible future education 
of the child. In the morning he was met by Joe, 
who received the message of his daughter with his 
usual dejection, and suggested that North stay with 
him until the child was better. That event was still 
remote ; North found, on his return to his cabin, 
hat the child had been worse; but he did not 
know, until Miss Bessy dropped a casual remark, 
that she had not closed her own eyes that night. 
It was a week before he regained his own quarters, 
&ut an active week — indeed, on the whole, a rather 


£6 


Drift from Two Shores . 


pleasant week. For there was a delicate flattery 
m being domineered by a wholesome and handsome 
woman, and Mr. James North had by this time 
made up his mind that she was both. Once or 
twice he found himself contemplating her splendid 
figure with a recollection of the doctor’s compli- 
ment, and later, emulating her own frankness, told 
her of it. 

“ And what did you say ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, I laughed and said — nothing.” 

And so did she. 

A month after this interchange of frankness, she 
asked him if he could spend the next evening at 
her house. “ You see,” she said, “ there ’s to be a 
dance down at the hall at Eureka, and I have n’t 
kicked a fut since last spring. Hank Fisher ’s corn- 
in’ up to take me over, and I’m goin’ to let the 
shanty slide for the night.” 

“But what’s to become of the baby?” asked 
North, a little testily. 

“Well,” said Miss Robinson, facing him some- 
what aggressively, “ I reckon it won’t hurt ye to 
take care of it for a night. Dad can’t — and if he 
could, he don’t know how. Liked to have pizened 
me after mar died. No, young man, I don’t pro- 
pose to ask Hank Fisher to tote thet child over to 
Eureka and back, and spile his fun.” 

“ Then I suppose I must make way for Mr. Hank 


The Man on the Beach. 47 

— Hank — Fisher?” said North, with the least 
tinge of sarcasm in his speech. 

“ Of course. You’ve got nothing else to do, you 
know.” 

North would have given worlds to have pleaded 
a previous engagement on business of importance, 
but he knew that Bessy spoke truly. He had 
nothing to do. “ And Fisher has, I suppose ? ” he 
asked. 

“ Of course — to look after me! ” 

A more unpleasant evening James North had 
not spent since the first day of his solitude. He 
almost began to hate the unconscious cause of his 
absurd position, as he paced up and down the floor 
with it. “ Was there ever such egregious folly ? ” 
he began, but remembering he was quoting Maria 
North’s favorite resume of his own conduct, he 
stopped. The child cried, missing, no doubt, the 
full rounded curves and plump arm of its nurse. 
North danced it violently, with an inward accom- 
paniment that was not musical, and thought of the 
other dancers. “ Doubtless,” he mused, “ she has 
told this beau of hers that she has left the baby 
with the ‘looney’ Man on the Beach. Perhaps I 
may be offered a permanent engagement as a harm- 
less simpleton accustomed to the care of children. 
Mothers may cry for me. The doctor is at Eu- 
reka. Of course, he will be there to see his un 


48 Drift from Two Shores. 

translated goddess, and condole with her over the 
imbecility of the Man on the Beach.” Once he 
carelessly asked Joe who the company were. 

“ Well,” said Joe, mournfully, “ thar ’s Widder 
Higsby and darter ; the four Stubbs gals ; in course 
Polly Doble will be on hand with that feller that ’s 
clerking over at the Head for Jones, and Jones’s 
wife. Then thar ’s French Pete, and Whisky Ben, 
and that chap that shot Archer, — I disremember 
his name, — and the barber — what ’s that little 
mulatto s name — that ’ar Kanaka ? I swow ! ” con- 
tinued Joe, drearily, “ I ’ll be forgettin’ my own 
next — and ” — 

“ That will do,” interrupted North, only half con- 
cealing his disgust as he rose and carried the baby 
to the other room, beyond the reach of names that 
might shock its ladylike ears. The next morning 
he met the from-dance-returning Bessy abstract- 
edly, and soon took his leave, full of a disloyal plan, 
conceived in the sleeplessness of her own bedcham- 
ber. He was satisfied that he owed a duty to its 
unknown parents to remove the child from the de- 
grading influences of the barber Kanaka, and Hank 
Fisher especially, and he resolved to write to his 
relatives, stating the case, asking a home for the 
waif and assistance to find its parents. He ad- 
dressed this letter to his cousin Maria, partly in 
consideration of the dramatic farewell of that young 


The Man on the Beach. 


49 


lady., and its possible influence in turning her sus- 
ceptible heart towards his protege. He then quietly 
settled back to his old solitary habits, and for a 
week left the Robinsons unvisited. The result 
was a morning call by Trinidad Joe on the hermit. 
“It’s a whim of my gal’s, Mr. North,” he said, de- 
jectedly, “ and ez I told you before and warned ye, 
when that gal hez an idee, fower yoke of oxen and 
seving men can’t drag it outer her. She ’s got a 
idee o’ lamin’ — never hevin’ hed much schoolin’, 
and we ony takin’ the papers, permiskiss like — 
and she says you can teach her — not hevin’ any- 
thin’ else to do. Do ye folly me ? ” 

“ Yes,” said North, “ certainly.” 

“Well, she allows ez mebbee you’re proud, and 
did n’t like her takin’ care of the baby for nowt ; 
and she reckons that ef you’ll gin her some book 
lamin’, and get her to sling some fancy talk in 
fash’n’ble style — why, she ’ll call it squar.” 

“ You can tell her,” said North, very honestly, 
“ that I shall be only too glad to help her in any 
way, without ever hoping to cancel my debt of ob- 
ligation to her.” 

“ Then it ’s ago? ” said the mystified Joe, with a 
desperate attempt to convey the foregoing state- 
ment to his own intellect in three Saxon words. 

“ It ’s a go,” replied North, cheerfully. 

And he felt relieved. For he was not quite sat- 
4 


50 Drift from Two Shores. 

isfied with his own want of frankness to her. But 
here was a way to pay off the debt he owed her, 
and yet retain his own dignity. And now he could 
tell her what he had done, and he trusted to the 
ambitious instinct that prompted her to seek a bet- 
ter education to explain his reasons for it. 

He saw her that evening and confessed all to 
her frankly. She kept her head averted, but when 
she turned her blue eyes to him they were wet 
with honest tears. North had a man’s horror of a 
ready feminine lachrymal gland; but it was not like 
Bessy to cry, and it meant something; and then 
she did it in a large, goddess-like way, without snif- 
fling, or choking, or getting her nose red, but 
rather with a gentle deliquescence, a harmonious 
melting, so that he was fain to comfort her with 
nearer contact, gentleness in his own sad eyes, and 
a pressure of her large hand. 

“ It ’s all right, I s’pose,” she said, sadly ; “ but 
I did n’t reckon on yer havin’ any relations, but 
thought you was alone, like me.” 

James North, thinking of Hank Fisher and the 
“ mullater,” could not help intimating that his re- 
lations were very wealthy and fashionable people, 
and had visited him last summer. A recollection of 
the manner in which they had so visited him, and 
his own reception of them, prevented his saying 
more. But Miss Bessy could not forego a certain 
feminine curiosity, and asked, — 


51 


The Man on the Beach . 

“ Did they come with Sam Baker’s team ? ” 

“Yes” 

“Last July?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And Sam drove the horses here for a bite ? ” 

“ I believe so.” 

“ And them ’s your relations ? ” 

“ They are.” 

Miss Robinson reached over the cradle and en- 
folded the sleeping infant in her powerful arms. 
Then she lifted her eyes, wrathful through her still 
glittering tears, and said, slowly, “ They don’t — 
have — this — child — then ! ” 

“ But why ? ” 

“ Oh, why ? I saw them ! That ’s why, and 
enough ! You can’t play any such gay and festive 
skeletons on this poor baby for flesh and blood par- 
ents. No, sir ! ” 

“ I think you judge them hastily, Miss Bessy,” 
said North, secretly amused ; “ my aunt may not, 
at first, favorably impress strangers, yet she has 
many friends. But surely you do not object to 
my cousin Maria, the young lady ? ” 

“ What ! that dried cuttle-fish, with nothing livin’ 
about her but her eyes ? James North, ye may be 
a fool like the old woman, — perhaps it ’s in the 
family, — but ye ain’t a devil, like that gal ! That 
*nds it. ’ 


52 


Drift from Two Shores. 


And it did. North dispatched a second letter 
to Maria saying that he had already made other 
arrangements for the baby. Pleased with her easy 
victory, Miss Bessy became more than usually 
gracious, and the next day bowed her shapely neck 
meekly to the yoke of her teacher, and became a 
docile pupil. James North could not have helped 
noticing her ready intelligence, even had he been 
less prejudiced in her favor than he was fast be- 
coming now. If he had found it pleasant before 
to be admonished by her, there was still more de 
licious flattery in her perfect trust in his omniscient 
skill as a pilot over this unknown sea. There was 
a certain enjoyment in guiding her hand over 
the writing-book, that I fear he could not have 
obtained from an intellect less graciously sustained 
by its physical nature. The weeks flew quickly 
by on gossamer wings, and when she placed a 
bunch of larkspurs and poppies in his hand one 
morning, he remembered for the first that it was 
spring. 

I cannot say that there was more to record of 
Miss Bessy’s education than this. Once North, 
half jestingly, remarked that he had never yet seen 
her admirer, Mr. Hank Fisher. Miss Bessy (color- 
ing but cool) — “ You never will ! ” North (white 
Dut hot) — “ Why ? ” Miss Bessy (faintly) — ■ 
* I ’d rather not.” North (resolutely) — “I in- 


The Man on the Beach . 


53 


gist.” Bessy (yielding) — “As my teacher?” North 
(hesitatingly, at the limitation of the epithet) — 
“ Y-e-e-s ! ” Bessy — “ And you *11 promise never 
to speak of it again ? ” North — “ Never.” Bessy 
(slowly) — “Well, he said I did an awful thing to 
go over to your cabin and stay.” North (in the 
genuine simplicity of a refined nature) — “ But 
how ? ” Miss Bessy (half piqued, but absolutely 
admiring that nature) — “ Quit ! and keep your 
promise ! ” 

They were so happy in these new relations that 
it occurred to Miss Bessy one day to take James 
North to task for obliging her to ask to be his pupil. 
“ You knew how ignorant I was,” she added ; and 
Mr. North retorted by relating to her the doctor’s 
criticism on her independence. “ To tell you the 
truth,” he added, “ I was afraid you would not take 
it as kindly as he thought.” 

“ That is, you thought me as vain as yourself. 
It seems to me you and the doctor had a great 
deal to say to each other.” 

“ On the contrary,” laughed North, “ that was all 
we said.” 

“ And you did n’t make fun of me ? ” 

Perhaps it was not necessary for North to take 
her hand to emphasize his denial, but he did. 

Miss Bessy, being still reminiscent, perhaps did 
not notice it. “ If it had n’t been for that ar — • 


54 Drift from Two Shores . 

I mean that thar — no, that baby — I would n’t 
have known you ! ” she said dreamily. 

“No,” returned North, mischievously, “but you 
Btill would have known Hank Fisher.” 

No woman is perfect. Miss Bessy looked at 
him with a sudden — her first and last — flash ol 
coquetry. Then stooped and kissed — the baby. 

James North was a simple gentleman, but not 
altogether a fool. He returned the kiss, but not 
vicariously. 

There was a footstep on the porch. These two 
turned the hues of a dying dolphin, and then 
laughed. It was Joe. He held a newspaper in 
his hand. “I reckon ye woz right, Mr. North, 
about my takin’ these yar papers reg’lar. For I 
allow here ’s suthin’ that may clar up the mystery 
o’ that baby’s parents.” With the hesitation of a 
slowly grappling intellect, Joe sat down on the ta- 
ble and read from the San Francisco “ Herald ” as 
follows : “ ‘ It is now ascertained beyond doubt that 
the wreck reported by the iEolus was the Ameri- 
can brig Pomare, bound hence to Tahiti. The 
worst surmises are found correct. The body of 
the woman has been since identified as that of 
the beau-ti-ful daughter of— of — of — Terp — Terp — . 
Terpish’ — Well! I swow that name ju&t tackle? 
¥ie.” 

“ Gin it to me, Dad,” said Bessy pertly. “ You 


The Man on the Beach. 55 

never had any education, any way. Hear your 
accomplished daughter.” With a mock bow to the 
new schoolmaster, and a capital burlesque of a con- 
fident school girl, she strode to the middle of the 
room, the paper held and folded book-wise in her 
hands. “ Ahem ! Where did you leave off? Oh, 
‘ the beautiful daughter of Terpsichore — whose 
name was prom-i-nently connected with a myste- 
rious social scandal of last year — the gifted but 
unfortunate Grace Chatterton ’ — No — don’t stop 
me — there ’s some more ! ‘ The body of her child, 
a lovely infant of six months, has not been recov- 
ered, and it is supposed was washed overboard.’ 
There ! may be that ’s the child, Mr. North. Why 
Dad ! Look, O my God ! He ’s falling. Catch him, 
Dad! Quick!” 

But her strong arm had anticipated her father’s. 
She caught him, lifted him to the bed, on which he 
lay henceforth for many days unconscious. Then 
fever supervened, and delirium, and Dr. Duchesne 
telegraphed for his friends; but at the end of a 
week and the opening of a summer day the storm 
passed, as the other storm had passed, and he 
awoke, enfeebled, but at peace. Bessy was at his 
Bide — he was glad to see — alone. “ Bessy, dear,” 
he said hesitatingly, “ when I am stronger I have 
lomething to tell you.” 

“ I know it all, Jem,” she said with a trembling 


56 


Drift from Two Shores. 


lip ; “ I heard it all — no, not from them, but from 
your own lips in your delirium. I ’m glad it came 
from you — even then.” 

“ Do you forgive me, Bessy ? ” 

She pressed her lips to his forehead and said 
hastily, and then falteringly, as if afraid of her im- 
pulse : — 

“Yes. Yes.” 

“ And you will still be mother to the child ? ” 

“ Her child ? ” 

“ No dear, not hers, but mine/” 

She started, cried a little, and then putting her 
arms around him, said : “ Yes.” 

And as there was but one way of fulfilling that 
•acred promise, they were married in the autumn. 


TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS. 


T never was clearly ascertained how long 
they had been there. The first settler of 
Rough-and-Ready — one Low, playfully 
;o his familiars as “ The Poor Indian ” — 
declared that the Saints were afore his time, and 
occupied a cabin in the brush when he “ blazed ” his 
way to the North Fork. It is certain that the twc 
were present when the water was first turned on the 
Union Ditch and then and there received the desig- 
nation of Daddy Downey and Mammy Downey, 
which they kept to the last. As they tottered 
toward the refreshment tent, they were welcomed 
with the greatest enthusiasm by the boys ; or, to 
borrow the more refined language of the “Union 
Recorder,” — “ Their gray hairs and bent figures, 
recalling as they did the happy paternal eastern 
homes of the spectators, and the blessings that fell 
from venerable lips when they left those homes to 
journey in quest of the Golden Fleece on Occi- 
dental Slopes, caused many to burst into tears.” 
The nearer facts, that many of these spectators 
were orphans, that a few were unable to establish 



known 



58 


Drift from Two Shores. 


any legal parentage whatever, that others had en- 
joyed a State’s guardianship and discipline, and that 
a majority had left their paternal roofs without any 
embarrassing preliminary formula, were mere pass- 
ing clouds that did not dim the golden imagery of 
the writer. From that day the Saints were adopt- 
ed as historical lay figures, and entered at once into 
possession of uninterrupted gratuities and endow- 
ment. 

It was not strange that, in a country largely 
made up of ambitious and reckless youth, these two 
— types of conservative and settled forms — should 
be thus celebrated. Apart from any sentiment or 
veneration, they were admirable foils to the com- 
munity’s youthful progress and energy. They were 
put forward at every social gathering, occupied 
prominent seats on the platform at every public 
meeting, walked first in every procession, were 
conspicuous at the frequent funeral and rarer wed- 
ding, and were godfather and godmother to the first 
baby born in Rough-and- Ready. At the first poll 
opened in that precinct, Daddy Downey cast the 
first vote, and, as was his custom, on all momentous 
occasions became volubly reminiscent. “ The first 
vote I ever cast,” said Daddy, “was for Andrew 
Jackson; the father o’ some on you peart young 
chaps was n’t born then ; he ! he ! that was ’way 
•ong in ’33, was n’t it ? I disremember now, but if 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 59 

Mammy was here, she bein’ a school-gal at the time, 
she could say. But my memory ’s failin’ me. I ’m 
an old man, boys ; yet I likes to see the young ones 
go ahead. I recklect that thar vote from a suck- 
umstance. Squire Adams was present, and seein’ 
it was my first vote, he put a goold piece into my 
hand, and, sez he, sez Squire Adams, 4 Let that al- 
ways be a reminder of the exercise of a glorious 
freeman’s privilege ! ’ He did ; he ! he ! Lord, 
boys! I feel so proud of ye, that I wish I had a 
hundred votes to cast for ye all.” 

It is hardly necessary to say that the memorial 
tribute of Squire Adams was increased tenfold by 
the judges, inspectors, and clerks, and that the old 
man tottered back to Mammy, considerably heavier 
than he came. As both of the rival candidates 
were equally sure of his vote, and each had called 
upon him and offered a conveyance, it is but fair to 
presume they were equally beneficent. But Daddy 
insisted upon walking to the polls, — a distance of 
two miles, — as a moral example, and a text for the 
California paragraphers, who hastened to record 
that such was the influence of the foot-hill climate, 
that 44 a citizen of Rough-and- Beady, aged eighty- 
four, rose at six o’clock, and, after milking two cows, 
walked a distance of twelve miles to the polls, and 
returned in time to chop a cord of wood before 
dinner.” Slightly exaggerated as this statement 


60 


Drift from Two Shores. 


may have been, the fact that Daddy was always 
found by the visitor to be engaged at his wood-pile, 
which seemed neither to increase nor diminish under 
his axe, a fact, doubtless, owing to the activity of 
Mammy, who was always at the same time making 
pies, seemed to give some credence to the story. 
Indeed, the wood-pile of Daddy Downey was a 
standing reproof to the indolent and sluggish miner. 

“Ole Daddy must use up a pow’ful sight of 
wood ; every time I ’ve passed by his shanty he ’s 
been makin’ the chips fly. But what gets me is, 
that the pile don’t seem to come down,” said Whisky 
Dick to his neighbor. 

“ Well, you derned fool ! ” growled his neighbor, 
u spose some chap happens to pass by thar, and 
sees the ole man doin’ a man’s work at eighty, and 
slouches like you and me lying round drunk, and 
that chap, feelin’ kinder humped, goes up some 
dark night and heaves a load of cut pine over his 
fence, who ’s got anything to say about it ? Say ? ” 
Certainly not the speaker, who had done the act 
suggested, nor the penitent and remorseful hearer, 
who repeated it next day. 

The pies and cakes made by the old woman were, 
I think, remarkable rather for their inducing the 
same loyal and generous spirit than for their in- 
trinsic excellence, and it may be said appealed 
more strongly to the nobler aspirations of humanity 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills . 


61 


than its vulgar appetite. Howbeit, everybody ate 
Mammy Downey’s pies, and thought of his child- 
hood. “ Take ’em, dear boys,” the old lady would 
say; “it does me good to see you eat ’em; reminds 
me kinder of my poor Sammy, that, ef he’d lived, 
would hev been ez strong and big ez you be, but 
was taken down with lung fever, at Sweetwater. I 
kin see him yet ; that ’s forty year ago, dear ! cornin’ 
out o’ the lot to the bake-house, and smilin’ such a 
beautiful smile, like yours, dear boy, as I handed 
him a mince or a lemming turnover. Dear, dear, 
how I do run on ! and those days is past ! but I 
seems to live in you again ! ” The wife of the hotel- 
keeper, actuated by a low jealousy, had suggested 
that she “ seemed to live off them ; ” but &s that per- 
son tried to demonstrate the truth of her statement 
by reference to the cost of the raw material used by 
the old lady, it was considered by the camp as too 
practical and economical for consideration. “ Be- 
sides,” added Cy Perkins, “ ef old Mammy wants 
to turn an honest penny in her old age, let her do 
it. How would you like your old mother to make 
pies on grub wages ? eh ? ” A suggestion that so 
affected his hearer (who had no mother) that he 
bought three on the spot. The quality of these 
pies had never been discussed but once. It is re- 
lated that a young lawyer from San Francisco, din- 
ng at the Palmetto restaurant, pushed away one of 


62 


Drift from Two Shores. 


Mammy Downey’s pies with every expression of 
disgust and dissatisfaction. At this j uncture, Whisky 
Dick, considerably affected by his favorite stimulant, 
approached the stranger’s table, and, drawing up a 
chair, sat uninvited before him. 

“ Mebbee, young man,” he began gravely, “ye 
don’t like Mammy Downey’s pies ? ” 

The stranger replied curtly, and in some astonish- 
ment, that he did not, as a rule, “ eat pie.” 

“Young man,” continued Dick, with drunken 
gravity, “ mebbee you ’re accustomed to Charlotte 
rusks and blue mange ; mebbee ye can’t eat unless 
your grub is got up by one o’ them French cooks ? 
Yet we — us boys yar in this camp — calls that pie 
— a good — a com-pe-tent pie ! ” 

The stranger again disclaimed anything but a 
general dislike of that form of pastry. 

“Young man,” continued Dick, utterly unheed- 
ing the explanation, — “young man, mebbee you 
onst had an ole — a very ole mother, who, tottering 
down the vale o’ years, made pies. Mebbee, and 
it’s like your blank epicurean soul, ye turned up 
your nose on the ole woman, and went back on the 
pies, and on her! She that dandled ye when ye 
woz a baby, — a little baby ! Mebbee ye went back 
on her, and shook her, and played off on her, and 
gave her away — dead away ! And now, mebbee, 
voung man — I would n’t hurt ye for the world, but 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 63 

mebbee, afore ye leave this yar table, ye ’ll eat 
THAT pie!” 

The stranger rose to his feet, but the muzzle of 
a dragoon revolver in the unsteady hands of Whisky 
Dick, caused him to sit down again. He ate the 
pie, and lost his case likewise, before a Rough-and- 
Ready jury. 

Indeed, far from exhibiting the cynical doubts 
and distrusts of age, Daddy Downey received al- 
ways with child-like delight the progress of modern 
improvement and energy. “ In my day, long back 
in the twenties, it took us nigh a week — a week, 
boys — to get up a barn, and all the young ones — 
I was one then — for miles ’round at the raisin’ ; 
and yer ’s you boys — rascals ye are, too — runs up 
this yer shanty for Mammy and me ’twixt sun-up 
and dark ! Eh, eh, you ’re teachin’ the old folks 
new tricks, are ye ? Ah, get along, you ! ” and in 
playful simulation of anger he would shake his 
white hair and his hickory staff at the “ rascals.” 
The only indication of the conservative tendencies 
of age was visible in his continual protest against 
the extravagance of the boys. “ Why,” he would 
say, “a family, a hull family, — leavin’ alone me 
and the old woman, — might be supported on what 
you young rascals throw away in a single spree. 
Ah, you young dogs, did n’t I hear about your scat- 
tering half-dollars on the stage the other night 


64 Drift from Two Shores . 

when that Eyetalian Papist was singin’. And that 
money goes out of Ameriky — ivry cent ! ” 

There was little doubt that the old couple were 
saving, if not avaricious. But when it was known, 
through the indiscreet volubility of Mammy Dow- 
ney, that Daddy Downey sent the bulk of their sav- 
ings, gratuities, and gifts to a dissipated and prodigal 
son in the East, — whose photograph the old man 
always carried with him, it rather elevated him in 
their regard. “ When ye write to that gay and 
festive son o’ yourn, Daddy,” said Joe Robinson, 
“ send him this yer specimen. Give him my com- 
pliments, and tell him, ef he kin spend money faster 
than I can, I call him ! Tell him, ef he wants a 
first-class jamboree, to kem out here, and me and 
the boys will show him what a square drunk is ! ” 
In vain would the old man continue to protest 
against the spirit of the gift ; the miner generally 
returned with his pockets that much the lighter, 
and it is not improbable a little less intoxicated 
than he otherwise might have been. It may be 
premised that Daddy Downey was strictly temper- 
ate. The only way he managed to avoid hurting 
the feelings of the camp was by accepting the fre- 
quent donations of whisky to be used for the pur- 
poses of liniment. 

“ Next to snake-oil, my son,” he would say, “ and 
iilberry-juice, - and ye don’t seem to pro-duce ’em 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 


65 


hereabouts, — whisky is good for rubbin’ onto old 
bones to make ’em limber. But pure cold water, 
‘ sparklin’ and bright in its liquid light,’ and, so to 
speak, reflectin’ of God’s own linyments on its sur- 
fiss, is the best, onless, like poor ol* Mamrpy and 
me, ye gets the dumb-agur from over-use.” 

The fame of the Downey couple was not confined 
to the foot-hills. The Rev. Henry Gushington, D. 
D., of Boston, making a bronchial tour of Cali- 
fornia, wrote to the “ Christian Pathfinder ” an 
affecting account of his visit to them, placed Daddy 
Downey’s age at 102, and attributed the recent 
conversions in Rough- and-Ready to their influence. 
That gifted literary Hessian, Bill Smith, traveling 
in the interests of various capitalists, and the trust- 
worthy correspondent of four “ only independent 
American journals,” quoted him as an evidence of 
the longevity superinduced by the climate, offered 
him as an example of the security of helpless life 
and property in the mountains, used him as an ad- 
vertisement of the Union Ditch, and it is said, in 
some vague way cited him as proving the collateral 
facts of a timber and ore-producing region existing 
in the foot-hills worthy the attention of Eastern 
capitalists. 

Praised thus by the lips of distinguished report, 
fostered by the care and sustained by the pecuniary 
offerings of their fellow-citizens, the Saints led for 
5 


66 


Drift from Two Shores. 


two years a peaceful life of gentle absorption. To 
relieve them from the embarrassing appearance of 
eleemosynary receipts, — an embarrassment felt 
more by the givers than the recipients, — the post- 
mastership of Rough-and-Ready was procured for 
Daddy, and the duty of receiving and delivering 
the United States mails performed by him, with the 
advice and assistance of the boys. If a few letters 
went astray at this time, it was easily attributed to 
this undisciplined aid, and the boys themselves 
were always ready to make up the value of a miss- 
ing money-letter and “ keep the old man’s accounts 
square.” To these functions presently were added 
the treasurerships of the Masons’ and Odd Fellows’ 
charitable funds, — the old man being far advanced 
in their respective degrees, — and even the position 
of almoner of their bounties was superadded. Here, 
unfortunately, Daddy’s habits of economy and ava- 
ricious propensity came near making him unpopu- 
lar, and very often needy brothers were forced to 
object to the quantity and quality of the help ex- 
tended. They always met with more generous re- 
lief from the private hands of the brothers them- 
selves, and the remark, “ that the oP man was trying 
to set an example, — that he meant well,” — and 
that they would yet be thankful for his zealous care 
and economy. A few, I think, suffered in noble 
silence, rather than bring the old man’s infirmity 
to the public notice. 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 


67 


And so with this honor of Daddy and Mammy, 
the days of the miners were long and profitable 
in the land of the foot-hills. The mines yielded 
their abundance, the winters were singularly open 
and yet there was no drouth nor lack of water, 
and peace and plenty smiled on the Sierrean foot- 
hills, from their highest sunny upland to the trail- 
ing falda of wild oats and poppies. If a certain 
superstition got abroad among the other camps, 
connecting the fortunes of Rough-and-Ready with 
Daddy and Mammy, it was a gentle, harmless, 
fancy, and was not, I think, altogether rejected by 
the old people. A certain large, patriarchal, boun- 
tiful manner, of late visible in Daddy, and the in- 
crease of much white hair and beard, kept up the 
poetic illusion, while Mammy, day by day, grew 
more and more like somebody’s fairy godmother. 
An attempt was made by a rival camp to emulate 
these paying virtues of reverence, and an aged 
mariner was procured from the Sailor’s Snug Har- 
bor in San Francisco, on trial. But the unfortu- 
nate seaman was more or less diseased, was not 
always presentable, through a weakness for ardent 
spirits, and finally, to use the powerful idiom of 
one of his disappointed foster-children, “up and 
died in a week, without slinging ary blessin’.” 

But vicissitude reaches young and old alike. 
Youthful Rough-and-Ready and the Saints had 


68 


Drift from Two Shores. 


climbed to their meridian together, and it seemed 
fit that they should together decline. The first 
shadow fell with the immigration to Rough-and- 
Ready of a second aged pair. The landlady of 
the Independence Hotel had not abated her malev- 
olence towards the Saints, and had imported at 
considerable expense her grand-aunt and grand- 
uncle, who had been enjoying for some years a 
sequestered retirement in the poor-house at East 
Machias. They were indeed very old. By what 
miracle, even as anatomical specimens, they had 
been preserved during their long journey was a 
mystery to the camp. In some respects they had 
superior memories and reminiscences. The old 
man — Abner Trix — had shouldered a musket in 
the war of 1812 ; his wife, Abigail, had seen Lady 
Washington. She could sing hymns ; he knew 
every text between “ the leds ” of a Bible. There 
is little doubt but that in many respects, to the 
superficial and giddy crowd of youthful spectators, 
they were the more interesting spectacle. 

Whether it was jealousy, distrust, or timidity 
that overcame the Saints, was never known, but 
they studiously declined to meet the strangers. 
When directly approached upon the subject, Daddy 
Downey pleaded illness, kept himself in close se- 
clusion, and the Sunday that the Trixes attended 
church in the school-house on the hill, the triumph 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 69 


bf the Trix party was mitigated by the fact that 
the Downeys were not in their accustomed pew. 
“ You bet that Daddy and Mammy is lying low 
iest to ketch them old mummies yet,” explained a 
Downeyite. For by this time schism and division 
had crept into the camp; the younger and later 
members of the settlement adhering to the Trixes, 
while the older pioneers stood not only loyal to 
their own favorites, but even, in the true spirit of 
partisanship, began to seek for a principle under- 
lying their personal feelings. “I tell ye what, 
boys,” observed Sweetwater Joe, “if this yer camp 
is goin’ to be run by greenhorns, and old pioneers, 
like Daddy and the rest of us, must take back 
seats, it’s time we emigrated and shoved out, 
and tuk Daddy with us. Why, they ’re talkin’ of 
rotation in offiss, and of putting that skeleton 
that Ma’am Decker sets up at the table, to take 
her boarders’ appetites away, into the post-office in 
dace o’ Daddy.” And, indeed, there were some 
fears of such a conclusion ; the newer men of 
Rough -and- Ready were in the majority, and wielded 
a more than equal influence of wealth and outside 
enterprise. “ Frisco,” as a Downeyite bitterly re- 
marked, “ already owned half the town.” The 
old friends that rallied around Daddy and Mammy 
were, like most loyal friends in adversity, in bad 
tase themselves, and were beginning to look and 


70 Drift from Two Shores. 

act, it was observed, not unlike their old favor- 
ites. 

At this juncture Mammy died. 

The sudden blow for a few days seemed to re- 
unite dissevered Rough-and-Ready. Both factions 
hastened to the bereaved Daddy with condole- 
ments, and offers of aid and assistance. But the 
old man received them sternly. A change had 
come over the weak and yielding octogenarian. 
Those who expected to find him maudlin, help- 
less, disconsolate, shrank from the cold, hard eyes 
and truculent voice that bade them “ begone,” and 
“leave him with his dead.” Even his own friends 
failed to make him respond to their sympathy, and 
were fain to content themselves with his cold inti- 
mation that both the wishes of his dead wife and 
his own instincts were against any display, or the 
reception of any favor from the camp that might 
tend to keep up the divisions they had innocently 
created. The refusal of Daddy to accept any ser- 
vice offered was so unlike him as to have but one 
dreadful meaning ! The sudden shock had turned 
his brain ! Yet so impressed were they with his 
resolution that they permitted him to perform tht 
last sad offices himself, and only a select few of his 
nearer neighbors assisted him in carrying the plain 
Seal coffin from his lonely cabin in the woods t« 
the still lonelier cemetery on the hill-top. When 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 7 } 


Lhe shallow grave was filled, he dismissed even 
these curtly, shut himself up in his cabin, and for 
days remained unseen. It was evident that he was 
no longer in his right mind. 

His harmless aberration was accepted and treated 
with a degree of intelligent delicacy hardly to be 
believed of so rough a community. During his 
wife’s sudden and severe illness, the safe containing 
the funds intrusted to his care by the various benev- 
olent associations was broken into and robbed, and 
although the act was clearly attributable to his 
carelessness and preoccupation, all allusion to the 
fact was withheld from him in his severe affliction. 
When he appeared again before the camp, and the 
circumstances were considerably explained to him, 
with the remark that “ the boys had made it all 
right,” the vacant, hopeless, unintelligent eye that 
he turned upon the speaker showed too plainly 
that he had forgotten all about it. “ Don’t trouble 
the old man,” said Whisky Dick, with a burst of 
honest poetry. “ Don’t ye see his memory ’s dead, 
and lying there in the coffin with Mammy ? ” Per- 
haps the speaker was nearer right than he imagined. 

Failing in religious consolation, they took vari- 
ous means of diverting his mind with worldly 
amusements, and one was a visit to a traveling va- 
riety troupe, then performing in the town. The 
result of the visit was briefly told by Whisky 


72 


Drift from Two Shores. 


Dick. “ Well, sir, we went in, and I sot the old 
man down in a front seat, and kinder propped him 
up with some other of the fellers round him, and 
there he sot as silent and awful ez the grave. And 
then that fancy dancer, Miss Grace Somerset, comes 
in, and dern my skin, ef the old man did n’t get to 
trembling and fidgeting all over, as she cut them 
pidgin wings. I tell ye what, boys, men is men, 
way down to their boots, — whether they ’re crazy 
or not! Well, he took on so, that I’m blamed if 
at last that gal herself did n’t notice him ! and she 
ups, suddenly, and blows him a kiss — so ! with her 
fingers ! ” 

Whether this narration were exaggerated or not, 
it is certain that the old man Downey every suc- 
ceeding night of the performance was a spectator. 
That he may have aspired to more than that was 
suggested a day or two later in the following inci- 
dent : A number of the boys were sitting around 
the stove in the Magnolia saloon, listening to the 
onset of a winter storm against the windows, when 
Whisky Dick, tremulous, excited, and bristling with 
rain-drops and information, broke in upon them. 

“Well, boys, I’ve got just the biggest thing out 
Ef I had n’t seed it myself, I would n’t hev be- 
lieved it ! ” 

“ It ain’t thet ghost ag’in ? ” growled Robinson, 
*rom the depths of his arm-chair ; “ thet ghost ’a 
about played.” 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 73 


* Wot ghost ? ” asked a new-comer. 

“ Why, ole Mammy’s ghost, that every fellet 
about yer sees when he ’s half full and out late o’ 
nights.” 

“ Where ? ” 

“Where? Why, where should a ghost be? 
Meanderin’ round her grave on the hill, yander, in 
course.” 

“It’s suthin bigger nor thet, pard,” said Dick 
confidently ; “ no ghost kin rake down the pot 
ag’in the keerds I’ve got here. This ain’t no 
bluff! ” 

“ Well, go on ! ” said a dozen excited voices. 

Dick paused a moment, diffidently, with the hesi- 
tation of an artistic raconteur. 

“ Well,” he said, with affected deliberation, “let’s 
see ! It ’s nigh onto an hour ago ez I was down 
thar at the variety show. When the curtain was 
down betwixt the ax, I looks round fer Daddy. 
No Daddy thar ! I goes out and asks some o’ the 
,K>ys. 4 Daddy was there a minnit ago,’ they say ; 
‘must hev gone home.’ Bein’ kinder responsible 
for the old man, I hangs around, and goes out in 
the hall and sees a passage leadin’ behind the 
scenes. Now the queer thing about this, boys, ez 
that suthin in my bones tells me the old man is 
ihar. I pushes in, and, sure as a gun, I hears his 
*oice. Kinder pathetic, kinder pleadin’ kinder” — 


74 Drift from Two Shores . 

“ Love-makin’ ! ” broke in the impatient Robin 
son. 

44 You ’ve hit it, pard, — you ’ye rung the bell 
every time ! But she says, 4 1 wants thet money 
down, or I ’ll ’ — and here I could n’t get to hear 
the rest. And then he kinder coaxes, and she says, 
sorter sassy, but listenin’ all the time, — woman 
like, ye know, Eve and the sarpint ! — and she 
says, 4 1 ’ll see to-morrow.’ And he says, 4 You 
won’t blow on me ? ’ and I gets excited and peeps 
zn, and may I be teetotally durned ef I didn’t 
see ” — 

44 What ? ” yelled the crowd. 

44 Why, Daddy on his knees to that there fancy 
dancer , Grace Somerset ! Now, if Mammy’s ghost 
is meanderin’ round, why, et ’s about time she left 
the cemetery and put in an appearance in Jackson’s 
Hall. Thet ’s all ! ” 

44 Look yar, boys,” said Robinson, rising, 44 1 
don’t know ez it’s the square thing to spile Daddy’s 
fun. I don’t object to it, provided she ain’t takin’ 
in the old man, and givin’ him dead away. But ez 
we ’re his guardeens, I propose that we go down 
thar and see the lady, and find out ef her intentions 
is honorable. If she means marry, and the old 
man persists, why, I reckon we kin give the young 
couple a send-off thet won’t disgrace this yer 
camp ! Hey, boys ? ” 


Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 


75 


It is unnecessary to say that the proposition was 
received with acclamation, and that the crowd a» 
once departed on their discreet mission. But the 
result was never known, for the next morning 
brought a shock to Rough-and-Ready before which 
all other interest paled to nothingness. 

The grave of Mammy Downey was found vio- 
lated and despoiled ; the coffin opened, and half 
filled with the papers and accounts of the robbed 
benevolent associations ; but the body of Mammy 
was gone ! Nor, on examination, did it appear that 
the sacred and ancient form of that female had 
ever reposed in its recesses ! 

Daddy Downey was not to be found, nor is it 
necessary to say that the ingenuous Grace Somer- 
set was also missing. 

For three days the reason of Rough-and-Ready 
trembled in the balance. No work was done in 
the ditches, in the flume, nor in the mills. Groups 
of men stood by the grave of the lamented relict 
of Daddy Downey, as open-mouthed and vacant as 
that sepulchre. Never since the great earthquake 
of ’52 had Rough-and-Ready been so stirred to its 
leepest foundations. 

On the third day the sheriff of Calaveras — a 
quiet, gentle, thoughtful man — arrived in town, 
nnd passed from one to the other of excited groups, 
dropping here and there detached but concise and 
practical information. 


76 Drift from Two Shores . 

“ Yes, gentlemen, you are right, Mrs. Downey is 
not dead, because there was n’t any Mrs. Downey i 
Her part was played by George F. Fenwick, of 
Sydney, — a ‘ ticket-of-leave-man,’ who was, they 
6ay, a good actor. Downey ? Oh, yes ! Downey 
was Jem Flanigan, who, in ’52, used to run the va- 
riety troupe in Australia, where Miss Somerset 
made her debut. Stand back a little, boys. Steady ! 
‘The money?’ Oh, yes, they’ve got away with 
that, sure ! How are ye, Joe ? Why, you ’re 
looking well and hearty! I rather expected ye 
court week. How ’s things your way ? ” 

“ Then they were only play-actors, Joe Hall ? ” 
broke in a dozen voices. 

“ I reckon ! ” returned the sheriff, coolly. 

“And for a matter o’ five blank years,” said 
Whisky Dick, sadly, “ they played this camp ! ” 


“ JINNY/ 


THINK that the few who were permitted 
to know and love the object of this sketch 
spent the rest of their days not only in an 
attitude of apology for having at first failed to 
recognize her higher nature, but of remorse that 
they should have ever lent a credulous ear to a 
priori tradition concerning her family characteris- 
tics. She had not escaped that calumny which she 
shared with the rest of her sex for those youthful 
follies, levities, and indiscretions which belong to 
immaturity. It is very probable that the firmness 
that distinguished her maturer will in youth might 
have been taken for obstinacy, that her nice dis- 
crimination might at the same period have been 
taken for adolescent caprice, and that the positive 
expression of her quick intellect might have been 
thought youthful impertinence before her years had 
won respect for her judgment. 

She was foaled at Indian Creek, and one month 
later, when she was brought over to Sawyer’s Bar, 
was considered the smallest donkey ever seen in 
the foot-hills. The legend that she was brought 




78 


Drift from Two Shores. 


over in one of “ Dan the Quartz Crusher’s ” boots 
required corroboration from that gentleman; but 
his denial being evidently based upon a masculine 
vanity regarding the size of his foot rather than a 
desire to be historically accurate, it went for noth- 
ing. It is certain that for the next two months she 
occupied the cabin of Dan, until, perhaps incensed 
at this and other scandals, she one night made her 
way out. “ I had n’t the least idee wot woz cornin’,” 
said Dan, “but about midnight I seemed to hear 
hail onto the roof, and a shower of rocks and stones 
like to a blast started in the canon. When I got 
up and struck a light, thar was suthin’ like onto a 
cord o’ kindlin’ wood and splinters whar she ’d stood 
asleep, and a hole in the side o’ the shanty, and — 
no Jinny ! Lookin’ at them hoofs o’ hern — and 
mighty porty they is to look at, too — you would 
allow she could do it ! ” I fear that this perform- 
ance laid the foundation of her later infelicitous 
reputation, and perhaps awakened in her youthful 
breast a misplaced ambition, and an emulation which 
might at that time have been diverted into a nobler 
channel. For the fame of this juvenile perform- 
ance — and its possible promise in the future — 
brought at once upon her the dangerous flattery 
and attention of the whole camp. Under intelli- 
gently directed provocation she would repeat her 
misguided exercise, until most of the scanty furni 


“ Jinny.” 


T9 


cure of the cabin was reduced to a hopeless wreck, 
and sprains and callosities were developed upon the 
limbs of her admirers. Yet even at this early stage 
of her history, that penetrating intellect which was 
in after years her dominant quality was evident to 
all. She could not be made to kick at quartz tail- 
ings, at a barrel of Boston crackers, or at the head 
or shin of “ Nigger Pete.” An artistic discrimina- 
tion economized her surplus energy. “ Ef you ’ll 
notiss,” said Dan, with a large parental softness, 
“ she never lets herself out to onst like them mules 
or any jackass ez I ’ve heerd of, but kinder holds 
herself in, and, so to speak, takes her bearings — 
sorter feels round gently with that off foot, takes 
her distance and her rest, and then with that ar’ 
foot hoverin’ round in the air softly, like an angel’s 
wing, and a gentle, dreamy kind o’ look in them 
eyes, she lites out ! Don’t ye, Jinny ? Thar ! jist 
ez I told ye,” continued Dan, with an artist’s noble 
forgetfulness of self, as he slowly crawled from the 
splintered ruin of the barrel on which he had been 
sitting. “ Thar ! did ye ever see the like ! Did 
ye dream that all the while I was talkin’ she was a 
meditatin’ that ? ” 

The same artistic perception and noble reticence 
distinguished her bray. It was one of which a less 
sagacious animal would have been foolishly vain or 
ostentatiously prodigal. It was a contralto of great 


80 


Drift from Two Shores. 


compass and profundity — reaching from low G to 
high C — perhaps a trifle stronger in the lower 
register, and not altogether free from a nasal fal- 
setto in the upper. Daring and brilliant as it was 
in the middle notes, it was perhaps more musically 
remarkable for its great sustaining power. The 
element of surprise always entered into the hearer’s 
enjoyment; long after any ordinary strain of human 
origin would have ceased, faint echoes of Jinny’s 
last note were perpetually recurring. But it was 
as an intellectual and moral expression that her 
bray was perfect. As far beyond her size as were 
her aspirations, it was a free and running commen- 
tary of scorn at all created things extant, with iron- 
ical and sardonic additions that were terrible. It 
reviled all human endeavor, it quenched all senti- 
ment, it suspended frivolity, it scattered reverie, it 
paralyzed action. It was omnipotent. More won- 
derful and characteristic than all, the very existence 
of this tremendous organ was unknown to the 
camp for six months after the arrival of its modest 
owner, and only revealed to them under circum- 
stances that seemed to point more conclusively than 
ever to her rare discretion. 

It was the beginning of a warm night and the 
middle of a heated political discussion. Sawyer’s 
Bar had gathered in force at the Crossing, and by 
the light of flaring pine torches, cheered and ap 


“ Jinny” 


81 


plauded the rival speakers who from a rude plat- 
form addressed the excited multitude. Partisan 
spirit at that time ran high in the foot-hills ; crim- 
ination and recrimination, challenge, reply, accu- 
sation, and retort had already inflamed the meet- 
ing, and Colonel Bungstarter, after a withering re- 
view of his opponent’s policy, culminated with a 
personal attack upon the career and private char- 
acter of the eloquent and chivalrous Colonel Cul- 
pepper Starbottle of Siskiyou. That eloquent and 
chivalrous gentleman was known to be present ; it 
was rumored that the attack was expected to pro- 
voke a challenge from Colonel Starbottle which 
would give Bungstarter the choice of weapons, and 
deprive Starbottle of his advantage as a dead shot. 
It was whispered also that the sagacious Starbottle, 
aware of this fact, would retaliate in kind so out- 
rageously as to leave Bungstarter no recourse but 
to demand satisfaction on the spot. As Colonel 
Starbottle rose, the eager crowd drew together, 
elbowing each other in rapt and ecstatic expectancy. 
“He can’t get even on Bungstarter, onless he 
allows his sister ran off with a nigger, or that he 
put up his grandmother at draw poker and lost 
her,” whispered the Quartz Crusher ; “ kin he ? ” 
All ears were alert, particularly the very long and 
hairy ones just rising above the railing of the 
speaker’s platform ; for Jinny, having a feminine 
6 


82 Drift from Two Shores. 

distrust of solitude and a fondness for show, had 
followed her master to the meeting and had ii sin- 
uated herself upon the platform, where way was 
made for her with that frontier courtesy always 
extended to her age and sex. 

Colonel Starbottle, stertorous and purjle, ad- 
vanced to the railing. There he unbuttoned his 
collar and laid his neckcloth aside, then with his 
eye fixed on his antagonist he drew off his blue 
frock coat, and thrusting one hand into his ruffled 
shirt front, and raising the other to the dark canopy 
above him, he opened his vindictive lips. The 
action, the attitude, were Starbottle’s. But the 
voice was not. For at that supreme moment, a 
bray — so profound, so appalling, so utterly soul- 
subduing, so paralyzing that everything else sank 
to mere insignificance beside it — filled woods, and 
sky, and air. For a moment only the multitude 
gasped in speechless astonishment — it was a mo- 
ment only — and then the welkin roared with their 
shouts. In vain silence was commanded, in vain 
Colonel Starbottle, with a ghastly smile, remarked 
that he recognized in the interruption the voice and 
the intellect of the opposition ; the laugh continued, 
the more as it was discovered that Jinny had not 
yet finished, and was still recurring to her original 
theme. “ Gentlemen,” gasped Starbottle, “ any at. 
tempt by [Hee-haw ! from Jinny] brutal buffoonery 


“ Jinny” 


88 


restrict the right of free speech to all [a pro- 
longed assent from Jinny] is worthy only the das- 
tardly ” — but here a diminuendo so long drawn 
as to appear a striking imitation of the Colonel’s 
own apoplectic sentences drowned his voice with 
shrieks of laughter. 

It must not be supposed that during this per- 
formance a vigorous attempt was not made to oust 
Jinny from the platform. But all in vain. Equally 
demoralizing in either extremity, Jinny speedily 
cleared a circle with her flying hoofs, smashed the 
speaker’s table and water pitcher, sent the railing 
flying in fragments over the cheering crowd, and 
only succumbed to two blankets, in which, with her 
head concealed, she was finally dragged, half cap- 
tive, half victor, from the field. Even then a 
muffled and supplemental bray that came from the 
woods at intervals drew half the crowd away and 
reduced the other half to mere perfunctory hearers. 
The demoralized meeting was adjourned ; Colonel 
Starbottle’s withering reply remained unuttered, 
and the Bungstarter party were triumphant. 

For the rest of the evening Jinny was the hero- 
ine of the hour, but no cajolery nor flattery could 
induce her to again exhibit her powers. In vain 
did Dean of Angel’s extemporize a short harangue 
ir\ the hope that Jinny would be tempted to reply ; 
n vain was every provocation offered that might 


84 


Drift from Two Shores. 


sting her sensitive nature to eloquent revolt. She 
replied only with her heels. Whether or not this 
was simple caprice, or whether she was satisfied 
with her maiden effort, or indignant at her subse- 
quent treatment, she remained silent. “ She made 
her little game,” said Dan, who was a political ad- 
herent of Starbottle’s, and who yet from that day 
enjoyed the great speaker’s undying hatred, “ and 
even if me and her don’t agree on politics — you 
let her alone.” Alas, it would have been well for 
Dan if he could have been true to his instincts, but 
the offer of one hundred dollars from the Bung- 
starter party proved too tempting. She passed ir- 
revocably from his hands into those of the enemy. 
But any reader of these lines will, I trust, rejoice 
to hear that this attempt to restrain free political 
expression in the foot-hills failed signally. For, 
although she was again covertly introduced on the 
platform by the Bungstarters, and placed face to 
face with Colonel Starbottle at Murphy’s Camp, she 
was dumb. Even a brass band failed to excite her 
emulation. Either she had become disgusted with 
politics or the higher prices paid by the party to 
other and less effective speakers aroused her jeal- 
ousy and shocked her self-esteem, but she remained 
a passive spectator. When the Hon. Sylvester 
Rourback, who received, for the use of his political 
faculties for a single night, double the sum for which 


“ Jinny ” 


85 


she was purchased outright, appeared on the same 
platform with herself, she forsook it hurriedly and 
took to the woods. Here she might have starved 
but for the intervention of one McCarty, a poor 
market gardener, who found her, and gave her food 
and shelter under the implied contract that she 
should forsake politics and go to work. The latter 
she for a long time resisted, but as she was consid- 
ered large enough by this time to draw a cart, Mc- 
Carty broke her to single harness, with a severe 
fracture of his leg and the loss of four teeth and a 
small spring wagon. At length, when she could 
be trusted to carry his wares to Murphy’s Camp, 
and could be checked from entering a shop with 
the cart attached to her, — a fact of which she al- 
ways affected perfect disbelief, — her education was 
considered as complete as that of the average Cali- 
fornia donkey. It was still unsafe to leave her 
alone, as she disliked solitude, and always made it 
a point to join any group of loungers with her 
unnecessary cart, and even to follow some good- 
looking miner to his cabin. The first time this 
peculiarity was discovered by her owner was on his 
return to the street after driving a bargain within 
the walls of the Temperance Hotel. Jinny was 
nowhere to be seen. Her devious course, however, 
was pleasingly indicated by vegetables that strewed 
1 e road until she was at last tracked to the ve* 


86 Drift from Two Shores. 

* 

randa of the Arcade saloon, where she was found 
looking through the window at a game of euchre, 
and only deterred by the impeding cart from enter* 
in g the building. A visit one Sunday to the lit- 
tle Catholic chapel at French Camp, where she at- 
tempted to introduce an antiphonal service and the 
cart, brought shame and disgrace upon her unlucky 
master. For the cart contained freshly-gathered 
vegetables, and the fact that McCarty had been 
Sabbath-breaking was painfully evident. Father 
Sullivan was quick to turn an incident that pro- 
voked only the risibilities of his audience into a 
moral lesson. “ It ’s the poor dumb beast that has 
a more Christian sowl than Michael,” he com- 
mented ; but here Jinny assented so positively that 
they were fain to drag her away by main force. 

To her eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded 
a calm maturity in which her conservative sagacity 
was steadily developed. She now worked for her 
living, subject, however, to a nice discrimination by 
which she limited herself to a certain amount of 
work, beyond which neither threats, beatings, nor 
cajoleries would force her. At certain hours she 
would start for the stable with or without the in- 
cumbrances of the cart or Michael, turning two 
long and deaf ears on all expostulation or entreaty 
“ Now, God be good to me,” said Michael, one day 
picking himself out from a ditch as he gazed son 


fowfully after the flying heels of Jinny, “ but it ’s 
only the second load of cabbages I ’m bringin’ the 
day, and if she ’s shtruck now , it ’s ruined I am en- 
toirely.” But he was mistaken ; after two hours 
of rumination Jinny returned of her own free will, 
having evidently mistaken the time, and it is said 
even consented to draw an extra load to make up 
the deficiency. It may be imagined from this and 
other circumstances that Michael stood a little in 
awe of Jinny’s superior intellect, and that Jinny 
occasionally, with the instinct of her sex, presumed 
upon it. After the Sunday episode, already re- 
ferred to, she was given her liberty on that day, a 
privilege she gracefully recognized by somewhat 
unbending her usual austerity in the indulgence of 
a saturnine humor. She would visit the mining 
camps, and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before 
the cabins, would, by various artifices and coquet- 
ries known to the female heart, induce some credu- 
lous stranger to approach her with the intention of 
taking a ride. She would submit hesitatingly to a 
halter, allow him to mount her back, and, with 
every expression of timid and fearful reluctance, at 
last permit him to guide her in a laborious trot out 
of sight of human habitation. What happened then 
was never clearly known. In a few moments the 
samp would be aroused by shouts and execrations, 
%nd the spectacle of Jinny tearing by at a frightfii 


88 


Drift from Two Shores . 


pace, with the stranger clinging with his arms 
around her neck, afraid to slip off, from terror of 
her circumvolving heels, and vainly imploring as- 
sistance. Again and again she would dash by the 
applauding groups, adding the aggravation of her 
voice to the danger of her heels, until suddenly 
wheeling, she would gallop to Carter’s Pond, and 
deposit her luckless freight in the muddy ditch. 
This practical joke was repeated until one Sunday 
3he was approached by Juan Ramirez, a Mexican 
vaquero , booted and spurred, and carrying a riata. 
A crowd was assembled to see her discomfiture. 
But, to the intense disappointment of the camp, 
Jinny, after quietly surveying the stranger, uttered 
a sardonic bray, and ambled away to the little cem- 
etery on the hill, whose tangled chapparal effectu- 
ally prevented all pursuit by her skilled antagonist. 
From that day she forsook the camp, and spent her 
Sabbaths in mortuary reflections among the pine 
head-boards and cold “hie jacets ” of the dead. 

Happy would it have been if this circumstance, 
which resulted in the one poetic episode of her life, 
had occurred earlier ; for the cemetery was the 
favorite resort of Miss Jessie Lawton, a gentle in- 
valid from San Francisco, who had sought the foot- 
hills for the balsam of pine and fir, and in the faint 
hope that the freshness of the wild roses might call 
hack her own. The extended views from the cem. 


“ Jinny .” 


89 


stery satisfied Miss Lawton’s artistic taste, and here 
frequently, with her sketch-book in hand, she in- 
dulged that taste and a certain shy reserve which 
kept her from contact with strangers. On one of 
the leaves of that sketch-book appears a study of a 
donkey’s head, being none other than the grave 
features of* Jinny, as once projected timidly over 
the artist’s shoulder. The preliminaries of this in- 
timacy have never transpired, nor is it a settled 
fact if Jinny made the first advances. The result 
was only known to the men of Sawyer’s Bar by a 
vision which remained fresh in their memories long 
after the gentle lady and her four-footed friend had 
passed beyond their voices. As two of the tunnel- 
men were returning from work one evening, they 
chanced to look up the little trail, kept sacred from 
secular intrusion, that led from the cemetery to the 
settlement. In the dim twilight, against a sunset 
sky, they beheld a pale-faced girl riding slowly to- 
ward them. With a delicate instinct, new to these 
rough men, they drew closer in the shadow of the 
bushes until she passed. There was no mistaking 
the familiar grotesqueness of Jinny ; there was no 
mistaking the languid grace of Miss Lawton. But 
a wreath of wild roses was around Jinny’s neck, 
from her long ears floated Miss Jessie’s hat ribbons, 
and a mischievous, girlish smile was upon Miss 
Jessie’s face, as fresh as the azaleas in her hair. By 


90 Drift from Two Shores. 

the next day the story of this gentle apparition was 
known to a dozen miners in camp, and all were 
sworn to secrecy. But the next evening, and the 
next, from the safe shadows of the woods they 
watched and drank in the beauty of that fanciful 
and all unconscious procession. They kept their 
secret, and never a whisper or footfall from these 
rough men broke its charm o*r betrayed their pres- 
ence. The man who could have shocked the sen- 
sitive reserve of the young girl would have paid for 
it with his life. 

And then one day the character of the proces- 
sion changed, and this little incident having been 
told, it was permitted that Jinny should follow her 
friend, caparisoned even as before, but this time by 
the rougher but no less loving hands of men. When 
the cortege reached the ferry where the gentle girl 
was to begin her silent journey to the sea, Jinny 
broke from those who held her, and after a frantic 
effort to mount the barge fell into the swiftly rush- 
ing Stanislaus. A dozen stout arms were stretched 
to save her, and a rope skilfully thrown was caught 
around her feet. For an instant she was passive, 
and, as it seemed, saved. But the next moment 
her dominant instinct returned, and with one stroke 
of her powerful heel she snapped the rope in twain 
and so drifted with her mistress to the sea. 


ROGER CATRON’S FRIEND. 


THINK that, from the beginning, we all 
knew how it would end. He had always 
been so quiet and conventional, although 
by nature an impulsive man ; always so temperate 
and abstemious, although a man with a quick ap- 
preciation of pleasure ; always so cautious and 
practical, although an imaginative man, that when, 
at last, one by one he loosed these bands, and gave 
himself up to a life, perhaps not worse than other 
lives, which the world has accepted as the natural 
expression of their various owners, we at once de- 
cided that the case was a hopeless one. And when 
one night we picked him up out of the Union Ditch, 
a begrimed and weather-worn drunkard, a hope- 
less debtor, a self-confessed spendthrift, and a half- 
conscious, maudlin imbecile, we knew that the end 
had come. The wife he had abandoned had in 
turn deserted him ; the woman he had misled had 
already realized her folly, and left him with her 
reproaches ; the associates of his reckless life, who 
had used and abused him, had found him no longer 
of service, or even amusement, and clearly there 




J2 


Drift from Two Shores. 


was nothing left to do but to hand him over to the 
state, and we took him to the nearest penitential 
asylum. Conscious of the Samaritan deed, we 
went back to our respective wives, and told his 
story. It is only just to say that these sympathetic 
creatures were more interested in the philanthropy 
of their respective husbands than in its miserable 
object. “ It was good and kind in you, dear,” said 
loving Mrs. Maston to her spouse, as returning 
home that night he flung his coat on a chair with 
an air of fatigued righteousness ; “ it was like your 
kind heart to care for that beast ; but after he left 
that good wife of his — that perfect saint — to 
take up with that awful woman, I think I ’d have 
left him to die in the ditch. Only to think of it, 
dear, a woman that you would n’t speak to ! ” Here 
Mr. Maston coughed slightly, colored a little, 
mumbled something about “ women not under- 
standing some things,” “ that men were men,” etc., 
and then went comfortably to sleep, leaving the 
outcast, happily oblivious of all things, and espe- 
cially this criticism, locked up in Hangtown Jail. 

For the next twelve hours he lay there, apathetic 
and half-conscious. Recovering from this after a 
while, he became furious, vengeful, and unmanage' 
able, filling the cell and corridor with maledictions 
of friend and enemy ; and again sullen, morose, 
and watchful. Then he refused food, and did no? 


Roger Catron s Friend . 93 

sleep, pacing his limits with the incessant, fever 
ish tread of a caged tiger. Two physicians, diagnos 
ing his case from the sca?nt facts, pronounced him 
insane, and he was accordingly transported to Sacra- 
mento. But on the way thither he managed to 
elude the vigilance of his guards, and escaped. The 
alarm was given, a hue and cry followed him, the 
best detectives of San Francisco were on his track, 
and finally recovered his dead body — emaciated 
and wasted by exhaustion and fever — in the Stan- 
islaus Marshes, identified it, and, receiving the re- 
ward of $1,000 offered by his surviving rel?tives 
and family, assisted in legally establishing the end 
we had predicted. 

Unfortunately for the moral, the facts were some- 
what inconsistent with the theory. A day or two 
after the remains were discovered and identified, the 
real body of “ Roger Catron, aged 52 years, slight, 
iron-gray hair, and shabby in apparel,” as the ad- 
vertisement read, dragged itself, travel-worn, trem- 
bling, and disheveled, up the steep slope of Dead- 
wood Hill. How he should do it, he had long since 
determined, — ever since he had hidden his Derrin- 
ger, a mere baby pistol, from the vigilance of his 
keepers. Where he should do it, he had settled 
within his mind only within the last few moments, 
peadwood Hill was seldom frequented ; his body 
might lie there for months before it was discovered. 


94 Drift from Two Shores . 

He had once thought of the river, but he remem- 
bered it had an ugly way of exposing its secrets on 
sandbar and shallow, and that the body of Whisky 
Jim, bloated and disfigured almost beyond recogni- 
tion, had been once delivered to the eyes of Sandy 
Bar, before breakfast, on the left bank of the Stan- 
islaus. He totted up through the chimisal that 
clothed the southern slope of the hill until he 
reached the bald, storm-scarred cap of the moun- 
tain, ironically decked with the picked, featherless 
plumes of a few dying pines. One, stripped of all 
but two lateral branches, brought a boyish recollec- 
tion to his fevered brain. Against a background 
of dull sunset fire, it extended two gaunt arms — 
black, rigid, and pathetic. Calvary ! 

With the very word upon his lips, he threw him- 
self, face downwards, on the ground beneath it, 
and, with his fingers clutched in the soil, lay there 
for some moments, silent and still. In this attitude, 
albeit a skeptic and unorthodox man, he prayed. I 
cannot say — indeed I dare not say — that his prayer 
was heard, or that God visited him thus. Let us 
rather hope that all there was of God in him, in this 
crucial moment of agony and shame, strove out- 
ward and upward. Howbeit, when the moon rose 
he rose too, perhaps a trifle less steady than the 
planet, and began to descend the hill with feverish 
haste, yet with this marked difference between hia 


Roger Catron's Friend. 95 

present haste and his former recklessness, that it 
seemed to have a well-defined purpose. When he 
reached the road again, he struck into a well-worn 
trail, where, in the distance, a light faintly twinkled. 
Following this beacon, he kept on, and at last flung 
himself heavily against the door of the little cabin 
from whose window the light had shone. As he 
did so, it opened upon the figure of a square, 
thickset man, who, in the impetuosity of Catron’s 
onset, received him, literally, in his arms. 

“ Captain Dick,” said Roger Catron, hoarsely, 
“ Captain Dick, save me ! For God’s sake, save 
me!” 

Captain Dick, without a word, placed a large, 
protecting hand upon Catron’s shoulder, allowed it 
to slip to his waist, and then drew his visitor 
quietly, but firmly, within the cabin. Yet, in the 
vej*y movement, he had managed to gently and 
unobtrusively possess himself of Catron’s pistol. 

“ Save ye ! From which ? ” asked Captain Dick, 
as quietly and unobtrusively dropping the Der- 
ringer in a flour sack. 

“ From evei y thing,” gasped Catron, “ from the 
men that are hounding me. from my family, from 
my friends, but most of all — from, from — my- 
Belf ! ” 

He had, in turn, grasped Captain Dick, and 
orced him frenziedly against the wall. The cap- 


96 Drift from Two Shores. 

tain released himself, and, taking the hands of his 
excited visitor, said slowly, — 

“ Ye want some blue mass — suthin’ to onload 
your liver. I ’ll get it up for ye.” 

But, Captain Dick, I ’m an outcast, shamed, 
disgraced ” — 

“ Two on them pills taken now, and two in the 
morning,” continued the captain, gravely, rolling a 
bolus in his fingers, “ will bring yer head to the 
wind again. Yer failin’ to leeward all the time, 
and ye want to brace up.” 

“ But, Captain,” continued the agonized man, 
again clutching the sinewy arms of has host, and 
forcing his livid face and fixed eyes within a few 
inches of Captain Dick’s, “ hear me ! You must and 
shall hear me. I ’ve been in jail — do you hear ? 
— in jail, like a common felon. I ’ve been sent 
to the asylum, like a demented pauper. I ’ve” — 

“ Two now, and two in the morning,” continued 
the captain, quietly releasing one hand only to 
place two enormous pills in the mouth of the ex- 
cited Catron, “ thar now — a drink o’ whisky — 
thar, that’ll do — just enough to take the taste out 
of yei mouth, wash it down, and belay it, so to 
speak. And how are the mills running, gin’rally, 
over at the Bar ? ” 

“ Captain Dick, hear me — it you are my friend, 
for God’s sake hear me ! An hour ago I should 
have been a dead man ” — 


Roger Catron's Friend. 9T 

“They say that Sam Bolin hez sold out of the 
Excelsior ” — 

“ Captain Dick ! Listen, for God’s sake ; I have 
suffered ” — 

But Captain Dick was engaged in critically ex- 
amining his man. “ I guess I ’ll ladle ye out some 
o’ that soothin’ mixture I bought down at Simp- 
son’s t’ other day,” he said, reflectively. “ And I 
onderstand the boys up on the Bar think the rains 
will set in airly.” 

But here Nature was omnipotent. Worn by ex- 
haustion, excitement, and fever, and possibly a lit- 
tle affected by Captain Dick’s later potion, Roger 
Catron turned white, and lapsed against the wall. 
In an instant Captain Dick had caught him, as a 
child, lifted him in his stalwart arms, wrapped a 
blanket around him, and deposited him in his bunk. 
Yet, even in his prostration, Catron made one more 
despairing appeal for mental sympathy from his 
host. 

H I know I ’m sick — dying, perhaps,” he gasped, 
from under the blankets ; “ but promise me, what- 
ever comes, tell my wife — say to ” — 

“It has been lookin’ consid’ble like rain, lately, 
hereabouts,” continued the captain, coolly, in a 
kind of amphibious slang, characteristic of the man, 
“ but in these yer latitudes no man kin set up to be 

a weather sharp.” 

7 


98 Drift from Two Shores . 

“ Captain ! will you hear me ? ” 

“Yer goin’ to sleep, now,” said the captain, 
ootentially. 

“ But, Captain, they are pursuing me ! If they 
should track me here ? ” 

“ Thar is a rifle over thar, and yer ’s my navy re- 
volver. When I ’ve emptied them, and want you 
to bear a hand, I ’ll call ye. Just now your lay is 
to turn in. It ’s my watch.” 

There was something so positive, strong, assur- 
ing, and a little awesome in the captain’s manner, 
that the trembling, nervously-prostrated man be- 
neath the blankets forbore to question further. In 
a few moments his breathing, albeit hurried and 
irregular, announced that he slept. The captain 
then arose, for a moment critically examined the 
sleeping man, holding his head a little on one side, 
whistling softly, and stepping backwards to get a 
good perspective, but always with contemplative 
good humor, as if Catron were a work of art, which 
he (the captain) had created, yet one that he was 
not yet entirely satisfied with. Then he put a 
large pea-jacket over his flannel blouse, dragged a 
Mexican serape from the corner, and putting it over 
his shoulders, opened the cabin door, sat down on 
he door-step, and leaning back against the door- 
post, composed himself to meditation. The moon 
lifted herself slowly over the crest of Deadwood 


99 


Roger Catron's Friend. 

Hill, and looked down, not unkindly, on his broad, 
white, shaven face, round and smooth as her own 
disc, encircled with a thin fringe of white hair and 
whiskers. Indeed, he looked so like the prevailing 
caricatures in a comic almanac of planets, with 
dimly outlined features, that the moon would have 
been quite justified in flirting with him, as she 
clearly did, insinuating a twinkle into his keen, 
gray eyes, making the shadow of a dimple on his 
broad, fat chin, and otherwise idealizing him after 
the fashion of her hero-worshiping sex. Touched 
by these benign influences, Captain Dick presently 
broke forth in melody. His song was various, but 
chiefly, I think, confined to the recital of the ex- 
ploits of one “ Lorenzo,” who, as related by him- 
self, — 

“ Shipped on board of a Liner, 

’Renzo, boys, ’Renzo,” — 

a fact that seemed to have deprived him at once of 
all metre, grammar, or even the power of coherent 
narration. At times a groan or a half-articulate 
cry would come from the “bunk” whereon Roger 
Catron lay, a circumstance that always seemed to 
excite Captain Dick to greater effort and more 
rapid vocalization. Toward morning, in the midst 
of a prolonged howl from the captain, who was 
finishing the “ Starboard Watch, ahoy ! ” in three 
different keys, Roger Catron’s voice broke sud- 
denly and sharply from his enwrappings : — 


100 


Drift from Two Shores. 


“ Dry up, you d — d old fool, will you ? ” 

Captain Dick stopped instantly. Rising to his 
feet, and looking over the landscape, he took all 
nature into his confidence in one inconceivably arch 
and crafty wink. “ He ’s coming up to the wind,” 
he said softly, rubbing his hands. “ The pills is 
fetchin’ him. Steady now, boys, steady. Steady 
as she goes on her course,” and with another wink 
of ineffable wisdom, he entered the cabin and locked 
the door. 

Meanwhile, the best society of Sandy Bar was 
kind to the newly-made widow. Without being 
definitely expressed, it was generally felt that 
sympathy with her was now safe, and carried no 
moral responsibility with it. Even practical and 
pecuniary aid, which before had been withheld, 
lest it should be diverted from its proper intent, 
and, perhaps through the weakness of the wife, 
made to minister to the wickedness of the husband, 
— even that was now openly suggested. Every- 
body felt that somebody should do something for 
the widow. A few did it. Her own sex rallied to 
her side, generally with large sympathy, but, Un- 
ix i tunately, small pecuniary or practical result. At 
last, when the feasibility of her taking a boarding- 
house in San Francisco, and identifying herself 
with that large class of American gentlewomen 


101 


Roger Catron 1 s Friend. 

who have seen better days, but clearly are on the 
road never to see them again, was suggested, a few 
of her own and her husband’s rich relatives came 
to the front to rehabilitate her. It was easier to 
take her into their homes as an equal than to re- 
fuse to call upon her as the mistress of a lodging- 
house in the adjoining street. And upon inspec- 
tion it was found that she was still quite an eligible 
partie, prepossessing, and withal, in her widow’s 
weeds, a kind of poetical and sentimental presence, 
as necessary in a wealthy and fashionable Ameri- 
can family as a work of art. “Yes, poor Caroline 
has had a sad, sad history,” the languid Mrs. Walker 
Catron would say, “ and we all sympathize with her 
deeply ; Walker always regards her as a sister.” 
What was this dark history never came out, but its 
very mystery always thrilled the visitor, and seemed 
to indicate plainly the respectability of the hostess. 
An American family without a genteel skeleton in 
its closet could scarcely add to that gossip which 
keeps society from forgetting its members. Nor 
was it altogether unnatural that presently Mrs. 
Roger Catron lent herself to this sentimental de- 
ception, and began to think that she really was a 
more exquisitely aggrieved woman than she had 
imagined. At times, when this vague load of iniq- 
uity put upon her dead husband assumed, through 
the mystery of her friends, the rumor of murdei 


102 


Drift from Two Shores . 


and highway robbery, and even an attempt upon 
her own life, she went to her room, a little fright- 
ened, and had “a good cry,” reappearing more 
mournful and pathetic than ever, and corroborat- 
ing the suspicions of her friends. Indeed, one or 
two impulsive gentlemen, fired by her pathetic eye- 
lids, openly regretted that the deceased had not 
been hanged, to which Mrs. Walker Catron re- 
sponded that, “Thank Heaven, they were spared 
at least that disgrace ! ” and so sent conviction into 
the minds of her hearers. 

It was scarcely two months after this painful 
close of her matrimonial life that one rainy Feb- 
ruary morning the servant brought a card to Mrs. 
Roger Catron, bearing the following inscription: — 

“Richard Graeme Macleod.” 

Women are more readily affected by names than 
we are, and there was a certain Highland respect- 
ability about this that, albeit, not knowing its pos- 
sessor, impelled Mrs. Catron to send word that she 
“ would be down in a few moments.” At the end 
of this femininely indefinite period, — a quarter of 
an hour by the French clock on the mantel-piece, — 
Mrs. Roger Catron made her appearance in the 
reception-room. It was a dull, wet day, as I have 
3aid before, but on the Contra Costa hills the 
greens and a few flowers were already showing a 


Roger Catron's Friend. 


103 


promise of rejuvenescence and an early spring. 
There was something of this, I think, in Mrs. Ca- 
tron’s presence, shown perhaps in the coquettish 
bow of a ribbon, in a larger and more delicate 
ruche, in a tighter belting of her black cashmere 
gown ; but still there was a suggestion of recent 
rain in the eyes, and threatening weather. As she 
entered the room, the sun came out, too, and re- 
vealed the prettiness and delicacy of her figure, 
and I regret to state, also, the somewhat obtrusive 
plainness of her visitor. 

“ I knew ye ’d be sorter disapp’inted at first, not 
gettin’ the regular bearings o’ my name, but I ’m 
‘ Captain Dick.’ Mebbe ye ’ve heard your husband 
— that is, your husband ez waz, Roger Catron — 
speak o’ me ? ” 

Mrs. Catron, feeling herself outraged and de- 
ceived in belt, ruche, and ribbon, freezingly ad* 
paitted that she had heard of him before. 

“ In course,” said the captain ; “ why, Lord love 
ye, Mrs. Catron, — ez waz, — he used to be all the 
time talkin’ of ye. And allers in a free, easy, con- 
fidential way. Why, one night — don’t ye remem- 
ber ? — when he came home, carryin’, mebbe, more 
canvas than was seamanlike, and you shet him out 
*he house, and laid for him with a broomstick, or 
one o’ them crokay mallets, I disremember which, 
and he kem over to me, ole Captain Dick, and I 


104 


Drift from Two Shores. 


sez to him, sez I, ‘ Why, Roger, them ’s only love 
pats, and yer condishun is such ez to make any 
woman mad-like/ Why, Lord bless ye ! there 
ain’t enny of them mootool differences you and 
him hed ez I does n’t knows on, and did n’t always 
stand by, and lend ye a hand, and heave in a word 
or two of advice when called on.” 

Mrs. Catron, ice everywhere but in her pink 
cheeks, was glad that Mr. Catron seemed to have 
always a friend to whom he confided everything , 
even the base falsehoods he had invented. 

“ Mebbe now they waz falsehoods,” said the cap- 
tain, thoughtfully. “ But don’t ye go to think,” 
he added conscientiously, “ that he kept on that 
tack all the time. Why, that day he made a raise, 
gambling, I think, over at Dutch Fiat, and give 
ye them bracelets, — regular solid gold, — why, it 
would have done your heart good to have heard 
him talk about you — said you had the prettiest 
arm in Californy. Well,” said the captain, look- 
ing around for a suitable climax, “ well, you ’d have 
thought that he was sorter proud of ye ! Why, 1 
woz with him in ’Frisco when he bought that A 1 
prize bonnet for ye for $75, and not hevin’ over 
$50 in his pocket, borryed the other $25 outer me. 
Mebbe it was a little fancy for a bonnet ; but I allera 
thought he took it a little too much to heart when 
jou swopped it off for that Dollar Varden dress, just 


Roger Catron's Friend. 105 

because that Lawyer Maxwell said the Dollar Var- 
dens was becomin’ to ye. Ye know, I reckon, he 
was always sorter jealous of that thar shark” — 

“ May I venture to ask what your business is 
vs ith me ? ” interrupted Mrs. Catron, sharply. 

“ In course,” said the captain, rising. u Ye see,” 
he said, apologetically, “ we got to talking o’ Roger 
and ole times, and I got a little out o’ my course. 
It ’s a matter of,” — he began to fumble in his 
pockets, and finally produced a small memorandum- 
book, which he glanced over, — “it’s a matter of 
$250.” 

“ I don’t understand you,” said Mrs. Catron, in 
indignant astonishment. 

“On the 15th of July,” said the captain, consult/ 
ing his memorandum-book, “ Roger sold his claim 
at Nye’s Ford for $1,500. Now, le’s see. Thar 
was nigh on $350 ez he admitted to me he lost at 
poker, and we’ll add $50 to that for treating, sup- 
pers, and drinks gin’rally — put Roger down for 
$400. Then there was you. Now you spent $250 
on your trip to ’Frisco thet summer ; then $200 
went for them presents you sent your Aunt Jane, 
and thar was $400 for house expenses. Well, thet 
foots up $1,250. Now, what’s become of thet 
other $250?” 

Mrs, Catron’s woman’s impulse to retaliate 
•harply overcame her first natural indignation at 


106 


Drift from Two Shores. 


her visitor’s impudence. Therein she lost, woman- 
like, her ground of vantage. 

“ Perhaps the woman he fled with can tell you,” 
she said savagely. 

“Thet,” said the captain, slowly, “is a good, a 
reasonable idee. But it ain’t true; from all I can 
gather she lent him money. It did n’t go thar” 

“ Roger Catron left me penniless,” said Mrs. Ca- 
tron, hotly. 

“ Thet’s jist what gets me. You oughter have 
$250 somewhar lying round.” 

Mrs. Catron saw her error. “ May I ask what 
right you have to question me ? If you have any, I 
must refer you to my lawyer or my brother-in-law; 
if you have none, I hope you will not oblige me to 
call the servants to put you from the house.” 

“ Thet sounds reasonable and square, too,” said 
the captain, thoughtfully ; “ I ’ve a power of attor- 
ney from Roger Catron to settle up his affairs and 
pay his debts, given a week afore them detectives 
handed ye over his dead body. But I thought that 
you and me might save lawyer’s fees and all fuss 
and feathers, ef, in a sociable, sad-like way, — look- 
in’ back sorter on Roger ez you and me once knew 
him, — we had a quiet talk together.” 

“Good morning, sir,” said Mrs. Catron, rising 
stiffly. The captain hesitated a moment, a sligh/ 
flush of color came in his face as he at last rose as 


Roger Catron's Friend. 107 

the lady backed out of the room. “ Good morning, 
ma’am,” said the captain, and departed. 

Very little was known of this interview except 
the general impression in the family that Mrs. Ca- 
tron had successfully resisted a vague attempt at 
blackmail from one of her husband’s former disso- 
lute companions. Yet it is only fair to say that 
Mrs. Catron snapped up, quite savagely, two male 
sympathizers on this subject, and cried a good deal 
for two days afterward, and once, in the hearing 
of her sister-in-law, to that lady’s great horror, 
“ wished she was dead.” 

A week after this interview, as Lawyer Phillips 
sat in his office, he was visited by Macleod. Recog- 
nizing, possibly, some practical difference between 
the widow and the lawyer, Captain Dick this time 
first produced his credentials, — a “ power of attor- 
ney.” “I need not tell you,” said Phillips, “that 
the death of your principal renders this instrument 
invalid, and I suppose you know that, leaving no 
will, and no property, his estate has not been ad- 
ministered upon.” 

“ Mebbe it is, and mebbe it is n’t. But I hain’t 
iskin’ for anythin’ but information. There was a 
bit o’ prop’ty and a mill onto it, over at Heavytree, 
ez sold for $10,000. I don’t see,” said the cap- 
tain, consulting his memorandum-book, “ ez he got 
anything out of it.” 


108 


Drift from Two Shores. 


“It was mortgaged for $7,000,” said the lawyei, 
quickly, and the interest and fees amount to about 
$3,000 more.” 

“ The mortgage was given as security for a 
note ? ” 

“ Yes, a gambling debt,” said the lawyer, sharply. 

“ Thet ’s so, and my belief ez that it was n’t a 
square game. He should n’t hev given no note. 
Why, don’t ye mind, ’way back in ’60, when you 
and me waz in Marysville, that night that you 
bucked agin faro, and lost seving hundred dollars, 
and then refoosed to take up your checks, saying 
it was a fraud and a gambling debt ? And don’t ye 
mind when that chap kicked ye, and I helped to 
drag him off ye — and ” — 

“ I ’m busy now, Mr. Macleod,” said Phillips, 
hastily ; “ my clerk will give you all the informa- 
tion you require. Good morning.” 

“ It ’s mighty queer,” said the captain, thought- 
fully, as he descended the stairs, “but the moment 
Tie conversation gets limber and sociable-like, and I 
gets to runnin’ free under easy sail, it’s always 
‘ Good morning, Captain,’ and we ’re becalmed.” 

By some occult influence, however, all the fore- 
going conversation, slightly exaggerated, and the 
whole interview of the captain with the widow 
with sundry additions, became the common prop- 
erty of Sandy Bar, to the great delight of the boys. 


Roger Catron's Friend . 


109 


There was scarcely a person who had ever had 
business or social relations with Roger Catron, 
whom “The Frozen Truth,” as Sandy Bar de- 
lighted to designate the captain, had not “ inter- 
viewed,” as simply and directly. It is said that he 
closed a conversation with one of the San Fran- 
cisco detectives, who had found Roger Catron’s 
body, in these words : “ And now hevin’ got throe* 
bizness, I was goin’ to ask ye what ’s gone of Matt 
Jones, who was with ye in the bush in Austraily. 
Lord, how he got me quite interested in ye, telling 
me how you and him got out on a ticket-of-Ioave, 
and was chased by them milishy guards, and at last 
swam out to a San Francisco bark and escaped ; ” 
but here the inevitable pressure of previous busi- 
ness always stopped the captain’s conversational 
flow. The natural result of this was a singular 
reaction in favor of the late Roger Catron in the 
public sentiment of Sandy Bar, so strong, indeed, 
as to induce the Rev. Mr. Joshua McSnagly, the 
next Sunday, to combat it with the moral of Ca- 
tron’s life. After the service, he was approached 
in the vestibule, and in the hearing of some of 
his audience, by Captain Dick, with the follow- 
ing compliment : “ In many pints ye hed jess got 
Roger Catron down to a hair. I knew ye’d do 
it: why., Lord love ye, you and him had pints in 
common ; and when he giv’ ye that hundred dol- 


110 


Drift from Two Shores . 


lars arter the fire in Sacramento, to help ye rebuild 
the parsonage, he said to me, — me not likin’ ye on 
account o’ my being on the committee that invited 
ye to resign from Marysville all along o’ that affair 
with Deacon Pursell’s darter ; and a piece she was, 
parson ! eh ? — well, Roger, he ups and sez to me, 
‘ Every man hez his faults,’ sez he ; and sez he, 
4 there ’s no reason why a parson ain’t a human be- 
ing like us, and that gal o’ Pursell’s is pizen, ez I 
know.’ So ye see, I seed that ye was hittin’ your- 
self over Catron’s shoulder, like them early mar- 
tyrs.” But here, as Captain Dick was clearly 
blocking up all egress from the church, the sexton 
obliged him to move on, and again he was stopped 
in his conversational career. 

But only for a time. Before long, it was whis- 
pered that Captain Dick had ordered a meeting of 
the creditors, debtors, and friends of Roger Catron 
at Robinson’s Hall. It was suggested, with some 
show of reason, that this had been done at the in- 
stigation of various practical jokers of Sandy Bar, 
who had imposed on the simple directness of the 
jap'sain, and the attendance that night certainly 
indicated something more than a mere business 
meeting. All of Sandy Bar crowded into Rob- 
inson’s Hall, and long before Captain Dick made 
his appearance on the platform, with his inevi 
table memorandum-book, every inch of floor was 
crowded. 


Ill 


Roger Catron's Friend. 

The captain began to read the expenditures of 
Roger Catron with relentless fidelity of detail. The 
several losses by poker, the whisky bills, and the 
record of a “ jamboree ” at Tooley’s, the vague ex- 
penses whereof footed up $275, were received with 
enthusiastic cheers by the audience. A single mil- 
liner’s bill for $125 was hailed with delight; $100 
expended in treating the Vestal Virgin Combina- 
tion Troupe almost canonized his memory ; $50 
for a simple buggy ride with Deacon Fisk brought 
down the house ; $500 advanced, without security, 
and unpaid, for the electioneering expenses of As- 
semblyman Jones, who had recently introduced a 
bill to prevent gambling and the sale of lager beer 
on Sundays, was received with, an ominous groan. 
One or two other items of money loaned occasioned 
the withdrawal of several gentlemen from the au- 
dience amidst the hisses or ironical cheers of the 
others. 

At last Captain Dick stopped and advanced to 
the footlights. 

“ Gentlemen and friends,” he said, slowly. “ I 
foots up $25,000 as Roger Catron hez made , fair 
and square, in this yer county. I foots up $27,000 
ez he has spent in this yer county. I puts it 
to you ez men, — far-minded men, — ef this man 
was a pauper and debtor ? I put it to you ez far- 
minded men, — ez free and easy men, * — ez political 


L12 Drift from Two Shores . 

economists, — ez this the kind of men to impoverish 
a county ? ” 

An overwhelming and instantaneous “ No ! ” al 
most drowned the last utterance of the speaker. 

“ Thar is only one item,” said Captain Dick, slowly 
“ only one item, that ez men, — ez far-minded men, 
— ez political economists, — it seems to me we hez 
the right to question. It ’s this : Thar is an item, 
read to you by me, of $2,000 paid to certing San 
Francisco detectives, paid out o’ the assets o’ Roger 
Catron, for the finding of Roger Catron’s body. 
Gentlemen of Sandy Bar and friends, I found that 
body, and yer it is ! ” 

And Roger Catron, a little pale and nervous, but 
palpably in the flesh, stepped upon the platform. 

Of course the newspapers were full of it the 
next day. Of course, in due time, it appeared as a 
garbled and romantic item in the San Francisco 
press. Of course Mrs. Catron, on reading it, fainted, 
and for two days said that this last cruel blow 
ended all relations between her husband and her- 
self. On the third day she expressed her belief 
that, if he had had the slightest feeling for her, he 
would, long since, for the sake of mere decency, 
have communicated with her. On the fourth day 
she thought she had been, perhaps, badly advised, 
Dad an open quarrel with her relatives, and inti- 
mated that a wife had certain obligations, etc. On 


Roger Catron's Friend. 


118 


She sixth day, still not hearing from him, she 
quoted Scripture, spoke of a seventy-times-seven 
forgiveness, and went generally into mild hysterics. 
On the seventh, she left in the morning train for 
Sandy Bar. 

And really I don’t know as I have anything 
more to tell. I dined with them recently, and, 
upon my word, a more decorous, correct, conven- 
tional, and dull dinner I never ate in my life. 

6 


“WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND?” 


TRANGER ! ” 

The voice was not loud, but clear and 
penetrating. I looked vainly up and 
down the narrow, darkening trail. No one in the 
fringe of alder ahead ; no one on the gullied slope 
behind. 

“ O ! stranger ! ” 

This time a little impatiently. The California 
classical vocative, “ O,” always meant business. 

I looked up, and perceived for the first time on 
the ledge, thirty feet above me, another trail par- 
allel with my own, and looking down upon me 
through the buckeye bushes a small man on a 
black horse. 

Five things to be here noted by the circumspect 
mountaineer. First, the locality, — lonely and in- 
accessible, and away from the regular faring of 
teamsters and miners. Secondly , the stranger’s 
superior knowledge of the road, from the fact 
that the other trail was unknown to the ordinary 
traveler. Thirdly, that he was well armed and 
equipped. Fourthly, that he was better mounted 



“ Who was my Quiet Friend?” 115 

Fifthly , that any distrust or timidity arising from 
lie contemplation of these facts had better be kept 
x> one’s self. 

All this passed rapidly through my mind as I 
returned his salutation. 

“ Got any tobacco ? ” he asked. 

I had, and signified the fact, holding up the 
pouch inquiringly. 

“ All right, I ’ll come down. Ride on, and I ’ll 
jine ye on the slide.” 

“ The slide ! ” Here was a new geographical 
discovery as odd as the second trail. I had ridden 
over the trail a dozen times, and seen no communi- 
cation between the ledge and trail. Nevertheless, 
I went on a hundred yards or so, when there was 
a sharp crackling in the underbrush, a shower of 
stones on the trail, and my friend plunged through 
the bushes to my side, down a grade that I should 
scarcely have dared to lead my horse. There was 
no doubt he was an accomplished rider, — another 
fact to be noted. 

As he ranged beside me, I found I was not mis- 
taken as to his size ; he was quite under the me- 
dium height, and but for a pair of cold, gray eyes, 
was rather commonplace in feature. 

“You’ve got a good horse there,” I suggested. 

He was filling his pipe from my pouch, but 
»ooked up a little surprised, and said, “ Of course.’ - 


116 


Drift from Two Shores . 


He then puffed away with the nervous eagerness 
of a man long deprived of that sedative. Finally, 
between the puffs, he asked me whence I came. 

I replied, “ From Lagrange.” 

He looked at me a few moments curiously, but on 
my adding that I had only halted there for a few 
hours, he said : “ I thought I knew every man be- 
tween Lagrange and Indian Spring, but somehow 
I sorter disremember your face and your name.” 

Not particularly caring that he should remem- 
ber either, I replied half laughingly, that, as I lived 
the other side of Indian Spring, it was quite natu- 
ral. He took the rebuff, if such it was, so quietly 
that as an act of mere perfunctory politeness I 
asked him where he came from. 

“ Lagrange.” 

“ And you are going to ” — 

“ Well ! that depends pretty much on how things 
pan out, and whether I can make the riffle.” He 
let his hand rest quite unconsciously on the leath- 
ern holster of his dragoon revolver, yet with a 
strong suggestion to me of his ability “to make 
the riffle ” if he wanted to, and added : “ But just 
now I was reck’nin’ on taking a little pasear with 
you.” 

There was nothing offensive in his speech save 
its familiarity, and the reflection, perhaps, that 
whether I objected or not, he was quite able to dc 


“ Who was my Quiet Friend?” 117 

as he said. I only replied that if our vasear was 
prolonged beyond Heavytree Hill, I should have to 
borrow his beast. To my surprise he replied qui- 
etly, “ That ’s so,” adding that the horse was at my 
disposal when he was n’t using it, and half of it 
when he was. “ Dick has carried double many a 
time before this,” he continued, u and kin do it 
again ; when your mustang gives out I ’ll give you 
a lift and room to spare.” 

I could not help smiling at the idea of appear- 
ing before the boys at Red Gulch en croupe with 
the stranger ; but neither could I help being oddly 
affected by the suggestion that his horse had done 
double duty before. “ On what occasion, and why ?” 
was a question I kept to myself. We were ascend- 
ing the long, rocky flank of the divide ; the nar- 
rowness of the trail obliged us to proceed slowly, 
and in file, so that there was little chance for con- 
versation, had he been disposed to satisfy my curi- 
osity. 

We toiled on in silence, the buckeye giving way 
to chimisal, the westering sun, reflected again from 
the blank walls beside us, blinding our eyes with 
Hs glare. The pines in the canon below were olive 
gulfs of heat, over which a hawk here and there 
drifted lazily, or, rising to our level, cast a weird 
and gigantic shadow of slowly moving wings on 
the mountain side. The superiority of the stran- 


118 Drift from Two Shores . 

ger’s horse led him often far in advance, and made 
me hope that he might forget me entirely, or push 
on, growing weary of waiting. But regularly he 
would halt by a bowlder, or reappear from some 
chimisal, where he had patiently halted. I was 
beginning to hate him mildly, when at one of those 
reappearances he drew up to my side, and asked 
me how I liked Dickens ! 

Had he asked my opinion of Huxley or Darwin, 
I could not have been more astonished. Think- 
ing it were possible that he referred to some local 
celebrity of Lagrange, I said, hesitatingly : — 

“ You mean ” — 

“ Charles Dickens. Of course you ’ve read him ? 
Which of his books do you like best ? ” 

I replied with considerable embarrassment that 
I liked them all, — as I certainly did. 

He grasped my hand for a moment with a fervor 
quite unlike his usual phlegm, and said, u That ’s 
me, old man. Dickens ain’t no slouch. You can 
count on him pretty much all the time.” 

With this rough preface, he launched into a crit- 
icism of the novelist, which for intelligent sym 
pathy and hearty appreciation I had rarely heard 
equaled. Not only did he dwell upon the exuber- 
ance of his humor, but upon the power of his pa- 
thos and the all-pervading element of his poetry 
I looked at the man in astonishment. J had consict 


“ Who was my Quiet Friend ? ” 119 

ered myself a rather diligent student of the great 
master of fiction, but the stranger’s felicity of quo- 
tation and illustration staggered me. It is true, 
that his thought was not always clothed in the best 
language, and often appeared in the slouching, 
6langy undress of the place and period, yet it never 
was rustic nor homespun, and sometimes struck me 
with its precision and fitness. Considerably soft- 
ened toward him, I tried him with other literature. 
But vainly. Beyond a few of the lyrical and emo- 
tional poets, he knew nothing. Under the influ- 
ence and enthusiasm of his own speech, he himself 
had softened considerably ; offered to change horses 
with me, readjusted my saddle with professional 
skill, transferred my pack to his own horse, iusisted 
upon my sharing the contents of his whisky flask, 
and, noticing that I was unarmed, pressed upon me 
a silver-mounted Derringer, which he assured me 
he could “warrant.” These various offices of good 
will and the diversion of his talk beguiled me from 
noticing the fact that the trail was beginning to be- 
come obscure and unrecognizable. We were evi- 
dently pursuing a route unknown before to me. I 
pointed out the fact to my companion, a little im- 
patiently. He instantly resumed his old manner 
and dialect. 

“Well, I reckon one trail ’s as good as another 
and what hev ye got to say about it?” 


120 


Drift from Two Shores. 


I pointed out, with some dignity, that I preferred 
the old trail. 

“ Mebbe you did. But you ’re jiss now takin’ a 
pasear with me. This yer trail will bring you right 
into Indian Spring, and onnoticed , and no ques- 
tions asked. Don’t you mind now, I ’ll see you 
through.” 

It was necessary here to make some stand 
against my strange companion. I said firmly, yet as 
politely as I could, that I had proposed stopping 
over night with a friend. 

“ Whar ? ” 

I hesitated. The friend was an eccentric Eastern 
man, well known in the locality for his fastidious- 
ness and his habits as a recluse. A misanthrope, 
of ample family and ample means, he had chosen a 
secluded but picturesque valley in the Sierras where 
he could rail against the world without opposition. 
“ Lone Valley,” or “ Boston Ranch,” as it was 
familiarly called, was the one spot that the average 
miner both respected and feared. Mr. Sylvester, 
its proprietor, had never affiliated with “ the boys,” 
nor had he ever lost their respect by any active 
opposition to their ideas. If seclusion had been 
his object, he certainly was gratified. Nevertheless, 
in the darkening shadows of the night, and on a 
lonely and unknown trail, I hesitated a little at re- 
peating his name to a stranger of whom I knew so 


“ Who was my Quiet Friend ?” 121 

little. But my mysterious companion took the 
matter out of my hands. 

“ Look yar,” he said, suddenly, “ thar ain’t but 
one place twixt yer and Indian Spring whar ye 
can stop, and that is Sylvester’s.” 

I assented, a little sullenly. 

“ Well,” said the stranger, quietly, and with a 
slight suggestion of conferring a favor on me, “ ef 
yer pointed for Sylvester’s — why — I don’t mind 
stopping thar with ye. It ’s a little off the road — 
I ’ll lose some time — but taking it by and large, I 
don’t much mind.” 

I stated, as rapidly and as strongly as I could, 
that my acquaintance with Mr. Sylvester did not 
justify the introduction of a stranger to his hospi- 
tality ; that he was unlike most of the people here, 
— in short, that he was a queer man, etc., etc. 

To my surprise my companion answered quietly: 
“ Oh, that ’s all right. I ’ve heerd of him. Ef you 
don’t feel like checking me through, or if you’d 
father put i C. O. D.’ on my back, why it ’s all the 
same to me. I ’ll play it alone. Only you just 
count me in. Say ‘ Sylvester ’ all the time. That ’s 
me!” 

What could I oppose to this man’s quiet assur- 
ance P I felt myself growing red with anger and 
nervous with embarrassment. What would the 
aorrect Sylvester say to me? What would the 


122 


Drift from Two Shores. 


girls, — I was a young man then, and had won an 
entree to their domestic circle by my reserve, — 
known by a less complimentary adjective among 
“ the boys,” — what would they say to my new ac- 
quaintance? Yet I certainly could not object to 
his assuming all risks on his own personal recog- 
nizances, nor could I resist a certain feeling of 
shame at my embarrassment. 

We were beginning to descend. In the distance 
below us already twinkled the lights in the solitary 
rancho of Lone Valley. I turned to my compan- 
ion. “ But you have forgotten that I don’t even 
know your name. What am I to call you ? ” 

“ That ’s so,” he said, musingly. “ Now, let ’s 
see. 4 Kearney ’ would be a good name. It ’s short 
and easy like. Thar ’s a street in ’Frisco the same 
title ; Kearney it is.” 

“ But ” — I began impatiently. 

J Now you leave all that to me,” he interrupted, 
with a superb self-confidence that I could not but 
admire. “ The name ain’t no account. It ’s # the 
man that ’s responsible. Ef I was to lay for a man 
that I reckoned was named Jones, and after I 
fetched him I found out on the inquest that his real 
name was Smith, that would n’t make no matter, 
as long as I got the man.” 

The illustration, forcible as it was, did not strike 
me as offering a prepossessing introduction, but we 


“ Who was my Quiet Friend?" 123 

were already at the rancho. The barking of doga 
brought Sylvester to the door of the pretty little 
cottage which his taste had adorned. 

I briefly introduced Mr. Kearney. u Keaney 
will do — Kearney ’s good enough for me,” com- 
mented the soi-disant Kearney half-aloud, to my 
own horror and Sylvester’s evident mystification, 
and then he blandly excused himself for a moment 
that he might personally supervise the care of his 
own beast. When he was out of ear-shot I drew 
the puzzled Sylvester aside. 

“ I have picked up — I mean I have been picked 
up on the road by a gentle maniac, whose name is 
not Kearney. He is well armed and quotes Dick- 
ens. With care, acquiescence in his views on all 
subjects, and general submission to his commands, 
he may be placated. Doubtless the spectacle of 
your helpless family, the contemplation of your 
daughter’s beauty and innocence, may touch his 
fine sense of humor and pathos. Meanwhile, 
Heaven help you, and forgive me.” 

I ran upstairs to the little den that my hospita- 
ble host had kept always reserved for me in my 
wanderings. I lingered some time over my ablu- 
tions, hearing the languid, gentlemanly drawl of 
Sylvester below, mingled with the equally cool, 
easy slang of my mysterious acquaintance. When 
l came down to the sitting-room I was surprised, 


124 


Drift from Two Shores. 


however, to find the self-styled Kearney quietly 
seated on the sofa, the gentle May Sylvester, the 
“ Lily of Lone Valley,” sitting with maidenly awe 
and unaffected interest on one side of him, while on 
the other that arrant flirt, her cousin Kate, was 
practicing the pitiless archery of her eyes, with an 
excitement that seemed almost real. 

“ Who is your deliciously cool friend ? ” she 
managed to whisper to me at supper, as I sat utter- 
ly dazed and bewildered between the enrapt May 
Sylvester, who seemed to hang upon his words, and 
this giddy girl of the period, who was emptying the 
battery of her charms in active rivalry upon him. 
“ Of course we know his name is n’t Kearney. 
But how romantic ! And is n’t he perfectly lovely ? 
And who is he ? ” 

I replied with severe irony that I was not aware 
what foreign potentate was then traveling incognito 
in the Sierras of California, but that when his royal 
highness was pleased to inform me, I should be glad 
to introduce him properly. “ Until then,” I added, 
“ I fear the acquaintance must be Morganatic.” 

“ You ’re only jealous of him,” she said pertly. 
“ Look at May — she is completely fascinated. 
And her father, too.” And actually, the languid, 
world-sick, cynical Sylvester was regarding him 
with a boyish interest and enthusiasm almost in. 
eompatible with his nature. Yet I submit hon 


“ Who was my Quiet Friend ?” 125 

estly to the clear-headed reason of my own sex, 
that I could see nothing more in the man than 1 
have already delivered to the reader. 

In the middle of an exciting story of adventure, 
of which he, to the already prejudiced mind of his 
fair auditors, was evidently the hero, he stopped 
suddenly. 

u It ’s only some pack train passing the bridge 
on the lower trail,” explained Sylvester ; “ go on.” 

“It may be my horse is a trifle oneasy in the 
stable,” said the alleged Kearney ; “ he ain’t used 
to boards and covering.” Heaven only bsows 
what wild and delicious revelation lay in the state- 
ment of this fact, but the girls looked at each other 
with cheeks pink with excitement as Kearney arose, 
and, with quiet absence of ceremony, quitted the 
table. 

“ Ain’t he just lovely ? ” said Kate, gasping for 
breath, “ and so witty.” 

“ Witty ! ” said the gentle May, with just the 
slightest trace of defiance in her sweet voice; 
“ witty, my dear ? why, don’t you see that his heart 
is just breaking with pathos ? Witty, indeed ; why, 
when he was speaking of that poor Mexican woman 
that was hung, I saw the tears gather in his eyes. 
Witty, indeed ! ” 

“ Tears,” laughed the cynical Sylvester, “ tears, 
«dle tears. Why, you silly children, the man is a 


126 


Drift from Two Shores. 


man of the world, a philosopher, quiet, observant, 
unassuming.” 

“ Unassuming ! ” Was Sylvester intoxicated, or 
had the mysterious stranger mixed the “insane 
verb ” with the family pottage ? He returned be- 
fore I could answer this self-asked inquiry, and re- 
sumed coolly his broken narrative. Finding myself 
forgotten in the man I had so long hesitated to in- 
troduce to my friends, I retired to rest early, only 
to hear, through the thin partitions, two hours later, 
enthusiastic praises of the new guest from the volu- 
ble lips of the girls, as they chatted in the next 
room before retiring. 

At midnight I was startled by the sound of horses’ 
hoofs and the jingling of spurs below. A conver- 
sation between my host and some mysterious per- 
sonage in the darkness was carried on in such a 
low tone that I could not learn its import. As the 
cavalcade rode away I raised the window. 

“ What ’s the matter? ” 

“ Nothing,” said Sylvester, coolly, “ only another 
one of those playful homicidal freaks peculiar to 
the country. A man was shot by Cherokee Jack 
over at Lagrange this morning, and that was the 
sheriff of Calaveras and his posse hunting him. I 
told him I ’d seen nobody but you and your friend. 
By the way, I hope the cursed noise has n’ t dis 


“ Who was my Quiet Friend f” 127 

curbed him. The poor fellow looked as if he 
wanted rest.” 

I thought so, too. Nevertheless, I went softly 
to his room. It was empty. My impression was 
that he had distanced the sheriff of Calaveras about 
two hours. 


A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS. 


T was a vast silence of pines, redolent 
with balsamic breath, and muffled with the 
dry dust of dead bark and matted mosses. 
Lying on our backs, we looked upward through a 
hundred feet of clear, unbroken interval to the first 
lateral branches that formed the flat canopy above 
us. Here and there the fierce sun, from whose 
active persecution we had just escaped, searched 
for us through the woods, but its keen blade was 
dulled and turned aside by intercostal boughs, and 
its brightness dissipated in nebulous mists through- 
out the roofing of the dim, brown aisles around us. 
We were in another atmosphere, under another 
sky ; indeed, in another world than the dazzling one 
we had just quitted. The grave silence seemed so 
much a part of the grateful coolness, that we hesi- 
tated to speak, and for some moments lay quietly 
outstretched on the pine tassels where we had first 
thrown ourselves. Finally, a voice broke the si- 
lence : — 

“ Ask the old Major ; he knows all about it ! ” 
The person here alluded to under that military 




A Ghost of the Sierras. 


129 


title was myself. I hardly need explain to any 
Californian that it by no means followed that I was 
a “ Major,” or that I was “ old,” or that I knew 
anything about “ it,” or indeed what “ it ” referred 
to. The whole remark was merely one of the 
usual conventional feelers to conversation, — a kind 
of social preamble, quite common to our slangy 
camp intercourse. Nevertheless, as I was always 
known as the Major, perhaps for no better reason 
than that the speaker, an old journalist, was always 
called Doctor, I recognized the fact so far as to 
kick aside an intervening saddle, so that I could 
see the speaker’s face on a level with my own, and 
said nothing. 

“ About ghosts ! ” said the Doctor, after a pause, 
which nobody broke or was expected to break. 
u Ghosts, sir ! That ’s what we want to know. 
What are we doing here in this blank old mauso- 
leum of Calaveras County, if it is n’t to find out 
something about ’em, eh ? ” 

Nobody replied. 

“ Thar ’s that haunted house at Cave City. Can’t 
be more than a mile or two away, anyhow. Used 
to be just off the trail.” 

A dead silence. 

The Doctor (addressing space generally) : “ Yes, 
sir ; it was a mighty queer story.” 

Still the same reposeful indifference. We all 

9 


130 


Drift from Two Shores. 

knew the Doctor’s skill as a raconteur ; we all 
knew that a story was coming, and we all knew 
that any interruption would be fatal. Time and 
time again, in our prospecting experience, had a 
word of polite encouragement, a rash expression of 
interest, even a too eager attitude of silent expec- 
tancy, brought the Doctor to a sudden change of 
subject. Time and time again have we seen the 
unwary stranger stand amazed and bewildered be- 
tween our own indifference and the sudden ter- 
mination of a promising anecdote, through his own 
unlucky interference. So we said nothing. “ The 
Judge ” — another instance of arbitrary nomenclat- 
ure — pretended to sleep. Jack began to twist a 
cigarrito. Thornton bit off the ends of pine nee- 
dles reflectively. 

“ Yes, sir,” continued the Doctor, coolly resting 
the back of his head on the palms of his hands, 
“it was rather curious. All except the murder. 
That ’ s what gets me, for the murder had no new 
points, no fancy touches, no sentiment, no mystery. 
Was just one of the old style, ‘ sub-head ’ para- 
graphs. Old-fashioned miner scrubs along on hard- 
tack and beans, and saves up a little money to go 
home and see relations. Old-fashioned assassin 
sharpens up knife, old style ; loads old flint-lock, 
brass-mounted pistol ; walks in on old-fashioned 
miner one dark night, sends him home to his relar 


A Ghost of the Sierras . 


131 


dons away back to several generations, and walks 
off with the swag. No mystery there ; nothing to 
clear up ; subsequent revelations only impertinence. 
Nothing for any ghost to do — who meant busi- 
ness. More than that, over forty murders, same 
old kind, committed every year in Calaveras, and 
no spiritual post obits coming due every anniver- 
sary ; no assessments made on the peace and quiet 
of the surviving community. I tell you what, boys, 
I ’ve always been inclined to throw off on the Cave 
City ghost for that alone. It ’s a bad precedent, 
sir. If that kind o’ thing is going to obtain in the 
foot-hills, we’ll have the trails full of chaps formerly 
knocked over by Mexicans and road agents ; every 
little camp and grocery will have stock enough on 
hand to go into business, and where ’s there any 
security for surviving life and property, eh ? What ’s 
your opinion, Judge, as a fair-minded legislator?” 

Of course there was no response. Yet it was 
part of the Doctor’s system of aggravation to be- 
come discursive at these moments, in the hope of 
interruption, and he continued for some moments 
to dwell on the terrible possibility of a state of 
affairs in which a gentleman could no longer settle 
a dispute with an enemy without being subjected 
to succeeding spiritual embarrassment. But all 
this digression fell upon apparently inattentive ears. 

“ Well, sir, after the murder, the cabin stood for 


132 


Drift from Two Chores. 


a long time deserted and tenantless. Popular 
opinion was against it. One day a ragged prospec- 
tor, savage with hard labor and harder luck, came 
to the camp, looking for a place to live and a chance 
to prospect. After the boys had taken his measure, 
they concluded that he ’d already tackled so much 
in the way of difficulties that a ghost more or less 
would n’t be of much account. So they sent him 
to the haunted cabin. He had a big yellow dog 
with him, about as ugly and as savage as himself; 
and the boys sort o’ congratulated themselves, from 
a practical view point, that while they were giving 
the old ruffian a shelter, they were helping in the 
cause of Christianity against ghosts and goblins. 
They had little faith in the old man, but went their 
whole pile on that dog. That 's where they were 
mistaken. 

“ The house stood almost three hundred feet 
from the nearest cave, and on dark nights, being 
in a hollow, was as lonely as if it had been on the 
top of Shasta. If you ever saw the spot when 
there was just moon enough to bring out the little 
surrounding clumps of chapparal until they looked 
like crouching figures, and make the bits of broken 
quartz glisten like skulls, you ’d begin to under- 
stand how big a contract that man and that yellow 
dog undertook. 

They went into possession that afternoon, and 


A Ghost of the Sierras . 


133 


old Hard Times set out to cook his supper. When 
it was over he sat down by the embers and lit his 
pipe, the yellow dog lying at his feet. Suddenly 
‘ Rap ! rap ! ’ comes from the door. ‘ Come in,’ 
says the man, gruffly. Rap ! * again. i Come in 
and be d — d to you,’ says the man, who has no 
idea of getting up to open the door. But no one 
responded, and the next moment smash goes the 
only sound pane in the only window. Seeing this, 
old Hard Times gets up, with the devil in his eye, 
and a revolver in his hand, followed by the yellow 
dog, with every tooth showing, and swings open 
the door. No one there ! But as the man opened 
the door, that yellow dog, that had been so chipper 
before, suddenly begins to crouch and step back- 
ward, step by step, trembling and shivering, and at 
last crouches down in the chimney, without even so 
much as looking at his master. The man slams 
the door shut again, but there comes another 
smash. This time it seems to come from inside 
.he cabin, and it is n’t until the man looks around 
and sees everything quiet that he gets up, without 
speaking, and makes a dash for the door, and tears 
round outside the cabin like mad, but finds noth- 
ing but silence and darkness. Then he comes 
back swearing and calls the dog. But that great 
yellow dog that the boys would have staked all 
their money on is crouching under the bunk, and 


134 


Drift from Two Shores. 


has to be dragged out like a coon from a hollow 
tree, and lies there, his eyes starting from their 
sockets ; every limb and muscle quivering with 
fear, and his very hair drawn up in bristling ridges. 
The man calls him to the door. He drags himself 
a few steps, stops, sniffs, and refuses to go further. 
The man calls him again, with an oath and a 
threat. Then, what does that yellow dog do ? He 
crawls edgewise towards the door, crouching him- 
self against the bunk till he ’s flatter than a knife 
blade ; then, half way, he stops. Then that d — d 
yellow dog begins to walk gingerly — lifting each 
foot up in the air, one after the other, still trem- 
bling in every limb. Then he stops again. Then 
he crouches. Then he gives one little shuddering 
leap — not straight forward, but up, — clearing th>^ 
floor about six inches, as if ” — 

“Over something,” interrupted the Judge, hastily, 
lifting himself on his elbow. 

The Doctor stopped instantly. “ Juan,” he said 
coolly, to one of the Mexican packers, “ quit foolin’ 
with that riata. You ’ll have that stake out and 
that mule loose in another minute. Come over this 
way ! ” 

The Mexican turned a scared, white face to the 
Doctor, muttering something, and let go the deer- 
skin hide. We all up-raised our voices with one 
accord, the Judge most penitently and apologet 


13 £ 


A Ghost of the Sierras. 

ically, and implored the Doctor to go on. “ I ’ll 
shoot the first man who interrupts you again, 
added Thornton, persuasively. 

But the Doctor, with his hands languidly under 
his head, had lost his interest. “ Well, the dog ran 
off to the hills, and neither the threats nor cajole- 
ries of his master could ever make him enter the 
cabin again. The next day the man left the camp. 
What time is it ? Getting on to sundown, ain’t it ? 
Keep off my leg, will you, you d — d Greaser, and 
stop stumbling round there ! Lie down.” 

But we knew that the Doctor had not com- 
pletely finished his story, and we waited patiently 
for the conclusion. Meanwhile the old, gray si- 
lence of the woods again asserted itself, but shad- 
ows were now beginning to gather in the heavy 
beams of the roof above, and the dim aisles seemed 
to be narrowing and closing in around us. Pres- 
ently the Doctor recommenced lazily, as if no in- 
terruption had occurred. 

“ As I said before, I never put much faith in that 
story, and should n’t have told it, but for a rather 
curious experience of my own. It was in the 
spring of ’62, and I was one of a party of four, com- 
ing up from O’Neill’s, when we had been snowed 
up. It was awful weather ; the snow had changed 
to sleet and rain after we crossed the divide, and 
lie water was out everywhere ; every ditch was a 


136 


Drift from Two Shores . 


creek, every creek a river. We had lost two horses 
on the North Fork, we were dead beat, off the trail, 
and sloshing round, with night coming on, and the 
level hail like shot in our faces. Things were 
looking bleak and scary when, riding a little ahead 
of the party, I saw a light twinkling in a hollow 
beyond. My horse was still fresh, and calling out 
to the boys to follow me and bear for the light, I 
struck out for it. In another moment I was before 
a little cabin that half burrowed in the black chap- 
paral; I dismounted and rapped at the door. There 
was no response. I then tried to force the door, 
but it was fastened securely from within. I was 
all the more surprised when one of the boys, who 
had overtaken me, told me that he had just seen 
through a window a man reading by the fire. In- 
dignant at this inhospitality, we both made a reso- 
lute onset against the door, at the same time raising 
our angry voices to a yell. Suddenly there was a 
quick response, the hurried withdrawing of a bolt, 
and the door opened. 

“ The occupant was a short, thick-set man, with 
a pale, careworn face, whose prevailing expression 
was one of gentle good humor and patient suffer- 
ing. When we entered, he asked us hastily why 
we had no* ‘ sung out ’ before. 

“‘But we knocked !’ I said, impatiently, and! 
almost drove your door in.' 


A Ghost of the Sierras. 137 

“ ‘That’s nothing,’ he said, patiently. ‘I ’m used 
to that' 

“I looked again at the man’s patient, fateful 
face, and then around the cabin. In an instant the 
whole situation flashed before me. ‘ Are we not 
near Cave City ? ’ I asked. 

“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘ it ’s just below. You must 
have passed it in the storm.’ 

“ ‘ I see.’ I again looked around the cabin. 
‘ Is n’t this what they call the haunted house ? ’ 

“ He looked at me curiously. ‘ It is,’ he said, 
simply. 

“ You can imagine my delight ! Here was an 
opportunity to test the whole story, to work down 
to the bed rock, and see how it would pan out ! 
We were too many and too well armed to fear 
tricks or dangers from outsiders. If — as one 
theory had been held — the disturbance was kept 
up by a band of concealed marauders or road 
agents, whose purpose was to preserve their haunts 
from intrusion, we were quite able to pay them 
back in kind for any assault. I need not say that 
he boys were delighted with this prospect when 
ihe fact was revealed to them. The only one 
doubtful or apathetic spirit there was our host, who 
quietly resumed his seat and his book, with his old 
expression of patient martyrdom. It would have 
oeen easy for me to have drawn him out, but I felt 


138 


Drift from Two Shores. 


that I did not want to corroborate anybody else’a 
experience; only to record my own. And I thought 
it better to keep the boys from any predisposing 
terrors. 

“We ate our supper, and then sat, patiently and 
expectant, around the fire. An hour slipped away, 
but no disturbance ; another hour passed as monot- 
onously. Our host read his book ; only the dash 
of hail against the roof broke the silence. But” — 

The Doctor stopped. Since the last interrup- 
tion, I noticed he had changed the easy slangy style 
of his story to a more perfect, artistic, and even 
studied manner. He dropped now suddenly into 
his old colloquial speech, and quietly said : “ If you 
don’t quit stumbling over those riatas , Juan, I ’ll 
hobble you. Come here, there ; lie down, will 
you ? ” 

We all turned fiercely on the cause of this second 
dangerous interruption, but a sight of the poor fel- 
low’s pale and frightened face withheld our vindic- 
tive tongues. And the Doctor, happily, of his own 
accord, went on : — 

“But I had forgotten that it was no easy matter 
jo keep these high-spirited boys, bent on a row, in 
decent subjection ; and after the third hour passed 
without a supernatural exhibition, I observed, from 
certain winks and whispers, that they were deter- 
mined to get up indications of their own. In a 


A Grhost of the Sierras. 


139 


few moments violent rappings were heard from all 
parts of the cabin ; large stones (adroitly thrown up 
the chimney) fell with a heavy thud on the roof. 
Strange groans and ominous yells seemed to come 
from the outside (where the interstices between the 
logs were wide enough). Yet, through all this up- 
roar, our host sat still and patient, with no sign of 
indignation or reproach upon his good-humored but 
haggard features. Before long it became evident 
that this exhibition was exclusively for his benefit. 
Under the thin disguise of asking him to assist them 
in discovering the disturbers outside the cabin, those 
inside took advantage of his absence to turn the 
cabin topsy-turvy. 

“ ‘ You see what the spirits have done, old man,’ 
said the arch leader of this mischief. ‘ They ’ve up- 
set that there flour barrel while we was n’t looking, 
and then kicked over the water jug and spilled all 
the water ! ’ 

“The patient man lifted his head and looked at 
the flour-strewn walls. Then he glanced down at 
the floor, but drew back with a slight tremor. 

“ ‘ It ain’t water ! ’ he said, quietly. 

“ ‘ What is it, then ? ’ 

“‘It’s BLOOD! Look!’ 

“ The nearest man gave a sudden start and sank 
t>ack white as a sheet. 

“ For there, gentlemen, on the floor, just before 


140 


Drift from Two Shores. 


the door, where the old man had seen the dog hesi- 
tate and lift his feet, there ! there ! — gentlemen — 
upon my honor, slowly widened and broadened a 
dark red pool of human blood ! Stop him ! Quick ! 
Stop him, I say ! ” 

There was a blinding flash that lit up the dark 
woods, and a sharp report ! When we reached the 
Doctor’s side he was holding the smoking pistol, 
just discharged, in one hand, while with the other 
he was pointing to the rapidly disappearing figure 
of Juan, our Mexican vaquero ! 

“ Missed him ! by G — d ! ” said the Doctor. 
“ But did you hear him ? Did you see his livid face 
as he rose up at the name of blood ? Did you see 
his guilty conscience in his face. Eh ? Why don’t 
you speak ? What are you staring at ? ” 

“ Was it the murdered man’s ghost, Doctor ? ” 
we all panted in one quick breath. 

“Ghost be d — d! No! But in that Mexican 
vaquero — that cursed Juan Ramirez ! — I saw and 
shot at Ills murderer 1 ” 


THE HOODLUM BAND; 

OK, 

THE BOY CHIEF, THE INFANT POLITICIAN, 
AND THE PIRATE PRODIGY. 


BY JACK WHACKAWAY, 

Author of “ The Boy Slaver,” “ The Immature Incen* 
diary” “ The Precocious Pugilist,” etc., etc . 


CHAPTER I. 

T was a quiet New England village. No- 
where in the valley of the Connecticut the 
autumn sun shone upon a more peaceful, 
pastoral, manufacturing community. The wooden 
nutmegs were slowly ripening on the trees, and the 
white pine hams for Western consumption were 
gradually rounding into form under the deft manip- 
ulation of the hardy American artisan. The honest 
Connecticut farmer was quietly gathering from his 
threshing floor the shoe-pegs, which, when inter- 
mixed with a fair proportion of oats, offered a pleas- 
ing substitute for fodder to the effete civilizations 



142 Drift from Two Shorts. 

of Europe. An almost Sabbath-like stillness pre- 
vailed. Doemville was only seven miles from Hart- 
ford, and the surrounding landscape smiled with the 
conviction of being fully insured. 

Few would have thought that this peaceful vil- 
lage was the home of the three young heroes whose 
exploits would hereafter — but we anticipate. 

Doemville Academy was the principal seat of 
learning in the county. Under the grave and gen- 
tle administration of the venerable Doctor Context, 
it had attained just popularity. Yet the increasing 
infirmities of age obliged the doctor to relinquish 
much of his trust to his assistants, who, it is need- 
less to say, abused his confidence. Before long 
their brutal tyranny and deep-laid malevolence be- 
came apparent. Boys were absolutely forced to 
study their lessons. The sickening fact will hardly 
be believed, but during school hours they were 
obliged to remain in their seats with the appear- 
ance at least of discipline. It is stated by good 
authority that the rolling of croquet balls across 
the floor during recitation was objected to, under 
the fiendish excuse of its interfering with their stud- 
ies. The breaking of windows by base balls, and 
the beating of small scholars with bats, were de- 
clared against. At last, bloated and arrogant with 
success, the under-teachers threw aside all disguise 
and revealed themselves in their true colors. A 


The Hoodlum Band . 


148 


cigar was actually taken out of a day scholar’s 
mouth during prayers ! A flask of whiskey was 
dragged from another’s desk, and then thrown out 
of the window. And finally, Profanity, Hazing, 
Theft, and Lying were almost discouraged ! 

Could the youth of America, conscious of their 
power and a literature of theii own, tamely submit 
to this tyranny ? Never ! We repeat it firmly. 
Never ! We repeat it to parents and guardians. 
Never! But the fiendish tutors, chuckling in their 
glee, little knew what was passing through the 
cold, haughty intellect of Charles Fanuel Hall Go- 
lightly, aged ten ; what curled the lip of Benjamin 
Franklin Jenkins, aged seven ; or what shone in 
the bold blue eyes of Bromley Chitterlings, aged 
six and a half, as they sat in the corner of the play- 
ground at recess. Their only other companion and 
confidant was the negro porter and janitor of the 
school, known as “ Pirate Jim.” 

Fitly, indeed, was he named, as the secrets of his 
early wild career — confessed freely to his noble 
young friends — plainly showed. A slaver at the 
age of seventeen, the ringleader of a mutiny on the 
African Coast at the age of twenty, a privateersman 
during the last war with England, the commander 
of a fire-ship and its sole survivor at twenty-five, 
with a wild intermediate career of unmixed piracy, 
until the Rebellion called him to civil service again 


144 Drift from Two Shore x. 

as a blockade-runner, and peace and a desire for 
rural repose led him to seek the janitorship of the 
Doemville Academy, where no questions were asked 
and references not exchanged : he was, indeed, a 
fit mentor for our daring youth. Although a man 
whose days had exceeded the usual space allotted 
to humanity, the various episodes of his career foot- 
ing his age up to nearly one hundred and fifty-nine 
years, he scarcely looked it, and was still hale and 
vigorous. 

“ Yes,” continued Pirate Jim, critically, “I don’t 
think he was any bigger nor you, Master Chitter- 
lings, if as big, when he stood on the fork’stle of 
my ship, and shot the captain o’ that East Injymen 
dead. We used to call him little Weevils, he was 
so young-like. But, bless your hearts, boys ! he 
wa’n’t anything to little Sammy Barlow, ez once 
crep’ up inter the captain’s stateroom on a Rooshin 
frigate, stabbed him to the heart with a jack-knife, 
then put on the captain’s uniform and his cocked 
hat, took command of the ship and fout her his- 
self.” 

“Wasn’t the captain’s clothes big tor him ?’ 5 
asked B. Franklin Jenkins, anxiously. 

The janitor eyed young Jenkins with pained dig- 
nity. 

“ Did n’t I say the Rooshin captain was a small, 
a very small man? Rooshin s is small, likewise 
Greeks.” 


The Hoodlum Band . 145 

A noble enthusiasm beamed in the faces of the 
youthful heroes. 

“Was Barlow as large as me?” asked C. F. 
Hall Golightly, lifting his curls from his Jove-like 
brow. 

“Yes; but then he hed hed, so to speak, expe- 
riences. It was allowed that he had pizened his 
schoolmaster afore he went to sea. But it’s dry- 
talking, boys.” 

Golightly drew a flask from his jacket and 
handed it to the janitor. It was his father’s best 
brandy. The heart of the honest old seaman was 
touched. 

“ Bless ye, my own pirate boy ! ” he said, in a 
voice suffocating with emotion. 

“ I ’ve got some tobacco,” said the youthful Jen- 
kins, “ but it ’s fine-cut ; I use only that now.” 

“I kin buy some plug at the corner grocery,” 
said Pirate Jim, “ only I left my port-money at 
home.” 

“ Take this watch,” said young Golightly ; “ ’t is 
my father’s. Since he became a tyrant and usurper, 
and forced me to join a corsair’s band, I ’ve begun 
by dividing the property.” 

“ This is idle trifling,” said young Chitterlings, 
mildly. “ Every moment is precious. Is this an 
hour to give to wine and wassail ? Ha, we want 
action — action! We must strike the blow for free- 
10 


146 Drift from Two Shores. 

dom to-night — aye, this very night. The scow ik 
already anchored in the mill-dam, freighted with 
provisions for a three months’ voyage. I have a 
black flag in my pocket. Why, then, this cowardly 
delay ? ” 

The two elder youths turned with a slight feel 
ing of awe and shame to gaze on the glowing 
cheeks, and high, haughty crest of their youngest 
comrade — the bright, the beautiful Bromley Chit- 
terlings. Alas! that very moment of forgetfulness 
and mutual admiration was fraught with danger. 
A thin, dyspeptic, half-starved tutor approached. 

“ It is time to resume your studies, young gen- 
tlemen,” he said, with fiendish politeness. 

They were his last words on earth. 

“Down, tyrant!” screamed Chitterlings. 

“ Sic him — I mean, Sic semper tyrannis / ” said 
the classical Golightly. 

A heavy blow on the head from a base-ball bat, 
and the rapid projection of a base ball against his 
empty stomach, brought the tutor a limp and lifeless 
mass to the ground. Golightly shuddered. Let not 
my young readers blame him too rashly. It was 
his first homicide. 

“ Search his pockets,” said the practical Jenkins. 

They did so, and found nothing but a Harvard 
Triennial Catalogue. 

“ Let us fly,” said Jenkins. 


The Hoodlum Band. 147 

“ Forward to the boats ! ” cried the enthusiastic 
Chitterlings. 

But C. F. Hall Golightly stood gazing thought- 
fully at the prostrate tutor. 

“ This,” he said calmly, “ is the result of a too 
free government and the common school system. 
What the country needs is reform. I cannot go 
with you, boys.” 

“ Traitor ! ” screamed the others. 

C. F. H. Golightly smiled sadly. 

“ You know me not. I shall not become a pi- 
rate — but a Congressman ! ” 

Jenkins and Chitterlings turned pale. 

“I have already organized two caucuses in a 
base ball club, and bribed the delegates of another. 
Nay, turn not away. Let us be friends, pursuing 
through various ways one common end. Fare- 
well ! ” They shook hands. 

“ But where is Pirate Jim ? ” asked Jenkins. 

“ He left us but for a moment to raise money on 
the watch to purchase armament for the scow. 
Farewell !” 

And so the gallant, youthful spirits parted, bright 
with the sunrise of hope. 

That night a conflagration raged in Doemville. 
The Doemville Academy, mysteriously fired, first 
fell a victim to the devouring element. The candy 
ihop and cigar store, both holding heavy liabilities 


L48 


Drift from Two Shores. 


against the academy, quickly followed. By the 
lurid gleams of the flames, a long, low, sloop-rigged 
scow, with every mast gone except one, slowly 
worked her way out of the milldam towards the 
Sound. The next day three boys were missing — - 
C. F. Hall Golightly, B. F. Jenkins, and Brom- 
ley Chitterlings. Had they perished in the flames ? 
Who shall say ? Enough that never more under 
these names did they again appear in the homes of 
their ancestors. 

Happy, indeed, would it have been for Doemville 
had the mystery ended here. But a darker inter- 
est and scandal rested upon the peaceful village. 
During that awful night the boarding-school of 
Madam Brimborion was visited stealthily, and two 
of the fairest heiresses of Connecticut — daughters 
of the president of a savings bank, and insurance 
director — were the next morning found to have 
eloped. With them also disappeared the entire 
contents of the Savings Bank, and on the following 
day the Flamingo Fire Insurance Company failed. 


CHAPTER H. 

Let my young readers now sail with me to 
warmer and more hospitable climes. Off the coast 
of Patagonia a long, low, black schooner proudly 


The Hoodlum Band. 


149 


rides the seas, that breaks softly upon the vine-clad 
shores of that luxuriant land. Who is this that, 
wrapped in Persian rugs, and dressed in the most 
expensive manner, calmly reclines on the quarter- 
deck of the schooner, toying lightly ever and anon 
with the luscious fruits of the vicinity, held in bas- 
kets of solid gold by Nubian slaves ? or at intervals, 
with daring grace, guides an ebony velocipede over 
the polished black walnut decks, and in and out the 
intricacies of the rigging ? Who is it ? well may 
be asked. What name is it that blanches with ter- 
ror the cheeks of the Patagonian navy ? Who but 
the Pirate Prodigy — the relentless Boy Scourer 
of Patagonian seas? Voyagers slowly drifting by 
the Silurian beach, coasters along the Devonian 
shore, still shudder at the name of Bromley Chit- 
terlings — the Boy Avenger, late of Hartford, Con- 
necticut. 

It has been often asked by the idly curious, Why 
Avenger, and of what ? Let us not seek to disclose 
the awful secret hidden under that youthful jacket. 
Enough that there may have been that of bitterness 
in his past life that he 

** Whose soul would sicken o’er the heaving wave,” 

or “ whose soul would heave above the sickening 
wave,” did not understand. Only one knew him, 
perhaps too well — a queen of the Amazons, taken 


150 Drift from Two Shores . 

prisoner off Terra del Fuego a week previous. She 
loved the Boy Avenger. But in vain ; his youth- 
ful heart seemed obdurate. 

“ Hear me,” at last he said, when she had for the 
seventh time wildly proffered her hand and her 
kingdom in marriage, u and know once and forever 
why I must decline your flattering proposal : I love 
another.” 

With a wild, despairing cry, she leaped into the 
3ea, but was instantly rescued by the Pirate Prod- 
igy. Yet, even in that supreme moment, such was 
his coolness that on his way to the surface he cap- 
tured a mermaid, and, placing her in charge of his 
steward, with directions to give her a stateroom, 
with hot and cold water, calmly resumed his place 
by the Amazon’s side. When the cabin door closed 
on his faithful servant, bringing champagne and 
ices to the interesting stranger, Chitterlings resumed 
his narrative with a choking voice : — 

“ When I first fled from the roof of a tyrannical 
parent, I loved the beautiful and accomplished Eliza 
J. Sniffen. Her father was president of the Work- 
ingmen’s Savings Bank, and it was perfectly under- 
stood that in the course of time the entire deposits 
would be his. But, like a vain fool, I wished to 
anticipate the future, and in a wild moment per- 
suaded Miss Sniffen to elope with me ; and, with 
the entire cash assets of the banls, we fled together.* 


The Hoodlum Band. 


151 


He paused, overcome with emotion. “ But fate 
decreed it otherwise. In my feverish haste, I had 
forgotten to place among the stores of my pirate 
craft that peculiar kind of chocolate caramel to 
which Eliza Jane was most partial. We were 
obliged to put into New Rochelle on the second 
day out, to enable Miss SnifFen to procure that 
delicacy at the nearest confectioner’s, and match 
some zephyr worsteds at the first fancy shop. 
Fata, mistake. She went — she never returned!” 
In a moment he resumed in a choking voice, “Af- 
ter a week’s weary waiting, I was obliged to put to 
sea again, bearing a broken heart and the broken 
bank of her father. I have never seen her since.” 

“ And you still love her ? ” asked the Amazon 
queen, excitedly. 

“ Aye, forever ! ” 

“Noble youth. Here take the reward of thy 
fidelity, for know, Bromley Chitterlings, that I am 
Eliza Jane. Wearied with waiting, I embarked on 
a Peruvian guano ship — but it ’s a long story, 
dear.” 

“ And altogether too thin,” said the Boy Aven- 
ger, fiercely, releasing himself from her encircling 
arms. “Eliza Jane’s age, a year ago, was only 
thirteen, and you are forty, if a day.” 

“ True,” she returned, sadly, “ but I have suffered 
much, and time passes rapidly, and I’ve grown 


152 Drift from Two Shores. 

You would scarcely believe that this is my own 
hair.” 

“ I know not,” he replied, in gloomy abstraction. 

“ Forgive my deceit,” she returned. “ If you are 
affianced to another, let me at least be — a mother 
to you.” 

The Pirate Prodigy started, and tears came to 
his eyes. The scene was affecting in the extreme. 
Several of the oldest seamen — men who had gone 
through scenes of suffering with tearless eyes and 
unblanched cheeks — now retired to the spirit-room 
to conceal their emotion. A few went into caucus 
in the forecastle, and returned with the request that 
the Amazonian queen should hereafter be known 
as the “ Queen of the Pirates’ Isle.” 

“ Mother ! ” gasped the Pirate Prodigy. 

“ My son ! ” screamed the Amazonian queen. 

They embraced. At the same moment a loud 
flop was heard on the quarter-deck. It was the 
forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her state- 
room and ascending the companion-way at that 
moment, had fainted at the spectacle. The Pirate 
Prodigy rushed to her side with a bottle of smell- 
ing-salts. 

She recovered slowly. “ Permit me,” she said 
rising with dignity, “ to leave the ship. I am ua 
accustomed to such conduct.” 

“ Hear me — she is my mother ! ” 


The Hoodlum Band. 


152 


“ She certainly is old enough to be,” replied th€ 
mermaid ; “ and to speak of that being her own 
hair ! ” she added with a scornful laugh, as she re- 
arranged her own luxuriant tresses with character- 
istic grace, a comb, and a small hand-mirror. 

“ If I could n’t afford any other clothes, I might 
wear a switch, too ! ” hissed the Amazonian queen. 
“ T suppose you don’t dye it on account of the salt 
water. But perhaps you prefer green, dear ? ” 

u A little salt water might improve your own 
complexion, love.” 

“ Fishwoman ! ” screamed the Amazonian queen. 

“ Bloomerite ! ” shrieked the mermaid. 

In another instant they had seized each other. 

“ Mutiny ! Overboard with them ! ” cried the 
Pirate Prodigy, rising to the occasion, and casting 
aside all human affection in the peril of the mo- 
ment. 

A plank was brought and two women placed 
upon it. 

“After you, dear,” said the mermaid, signifi- 
cantly, to the Amazonian queen ; “ you ’re the 
oldest.” 

“ Thank you ! ” said the Amazonian queen, step- 
ping back. “ Fish is always served first.” 

Stung by the insult, with a wild scream of rage, 
the mermaid grappled her in her arms and leaped 
into the sea. 


154 Drift from Two Shores. 

As the waters closed over them forever, the 
Pirate Prodigy sprang to his feet. “ Up with the 
black flag, and bear away for New London,” he 
ghouted in trumpet-like tones. “ Ha, ha ! Once 
more the Rover is free ! ” 

Indeed it was too true. In that fatal moment 
he had again loosed himself from the trammels of 
human feeling, and was once more the Boy 
Avenger. 


CHAPTER III. 

Again I must ask my young friends to mount 
my hippogriff and hie with me to the almost inac- 
cessible heights of the Rocky Mountains. There, 
for years, a band of wild and untamable savages, 
known as the “ Pigeon Feet,” had resisted the 
blankets and Bibles of civilization. For years the 
trails leading to their camp were marked by the 
bones of teamsters and broken wagons, and the 
trees were decked with the drying scalp locks of 
women and children. The boldest of military 
leaders hesitated to attack them in their fortresses, 
ind prudently left the scalping knives, rifles, pow- 
der, and shot, provided by a paternal government 
for their welfare, lying on the ground a few miles 
; rom their encampment, with the request that they 
vere not to be used until the military had safety 


The Hoodlum Band. 


155 


retired. Hitherto, save an occasional incursion 
into the territory of the “ Knock-knees,” a rival 
tribe, they had limited their depredations to the 
vicinity. 

But lately a baleful change had come over them. 
Acting under some evil influence, they now pushed 
their warfare into the white settlements, carrying 
fire and destruction with them. Again and again 
had the government offered them a free pass to 
Washington and the privilege of being photo- 
graphed, but under the same evil guidance they 
refused. There was a singular mystery in their 
mode of aggression. School-houses were always 
burned, the school-masters taken into captivity, 
and never again heard from. A palace car on the 
Union Pacific Railway, containing an excursion 
party of teachers en route to San Francisco, was 
surrounded, its inmates captured, and — their va- 
cancies in the school catalogue never again filled. 
Even a Board of Educational Examiners, proceed- 
ing to Cheyenne, were taken prisoners, and obliged 
to answer questions they themselves had proposed, 
amidst horrible tortures. By degrees these atroci- 
ties were traced to the malign influence of a new 
chief of the tribe. As yet little was known of him 
but through his baleful appellations, “ Young Man 
who Goes for his Teacher,” and il He Lifts the 
Hair of the School Marm.” He was said to be 


156 Drift from Two Shores. 

small and exceedingly youthful in appearance. In* 
deed, his earlier appellative, “ He Wipes his Nose 
on his Sleeve,” was said to have been given to him 
to indicate his still boy-like habits. 

It was night in the encampment and among the 
lodges of the “ Pigeon Toes.” Dusky maidens 
flitted in and out among the camp-fires like brown 
moths, cooking the toothsome buffalo hump, frying 
the fragrant bear’s meat, and stewing the esculent 
bean for the braves. For a few favored ones spit- 
ted grasshoppers were reserved as a rare delicacy, 
although the proud Spartan soul of their chief 
scorned all such luxuries. 

He was seated alone in his wigwam, attended 
only by the gentle Mushymush, fairest of the 
“ Pigeon Feet ” maidens. Nowhere were the char- 
acteristics of her great tribe more plainly shown 
than in the little feet that lapped over each other 
in walking. A single glance at the chief was suffi- 
cient to show the truth of the wild rumors respect- 
ing his youth. He was scarcely twelve, of proud 
and lofty bearing, and clad completely in wrappings 
of various-colored scalloped cloths, which gave him 
the appearance of a somewhat extra-sized pen- 
wiper. An enormous eagle’s feather, torn from the 
wing of a bald eagle who once attempted to carry 
him away, completed his attire. It was also the 
memento of one of his most superhuman feats of 


The Hoodlum Band. 


157 


courage. He would undoubtedly have scalped the 
eagle but that nature had anticipated him. 

“ Why is the Great Chief sad ? ” asked Mushy- 
mush, softly. “ Does his soul still yearn for the 
blood of the pale-faced teachers ? Did not the 
scalping of two professors of geology in the Yale 
exploring party satisfy his warrior’s heart yester- 
day ? Has he forgtten that Hayden and Clarence 
King are still to follow ? Shall his own Mushy- 
mush bring him a botanist to-morrow? Speak, 
for the silence of my brother lies on my heart 
like the snow on the mountain, and checks the flow 
of my speech.” 

Still the proud Boy Chief sat silent. Suddenly 
he said : “ Hist ! ” and rose to his feet. Taking a 
long rifle from the ground he adjusted its sight. 
Exactly seven miles away on the slope of the 
mountain the figure of a man was seen walking. 
The Boy Chief raised the rifle to his unerring eye 
and fired. The man fell. 

A scout was dispatched to scalp and search the 
body. He presently returned. 

“ Who was the pale face ? ” eagerly asked the 
chief. 

“ A life insurance agent.” 

A dark scowl settled on the face of the chief 

u I thought it was a book-peddler.” 


158 


Drift from Two Shores. 


“ Why is my brother’s heart sore against the 
hook-peddler ? ” asked Mushymush. 

“ Because,” said the Boy Chief, fiercely, “ I am 
again without my regular dime novel, and 1 
thought he might have one in his pack. Hear me, 
Mushymush ; the United States mails no longer 
bring me my ‘ Young America,’ or my 4 Boys’ and 
Girls’ Weekly.’ I find it impossible, even with my 
fastest scouts, to keep up with the rear of General 
Howard, and replenish my literature from the sut- 
ler’s wagon. Without a dime novel or a 4 Young 
America,’ how am 1 to keep up this Injin busi- 
ness ? ” 

Mushymush remained in meditation a single mo- 
ment. Then she looked up proudly. 

“ My brother has spoken. It is well. He shall 
have his dime novel. He shall know what kind of 
a hair-pin his sister Mushymush is.” 

And she arose and gamboled lightly as the 
fawn out of his presence. 

In two hours she returned. In one hand she 
held three small flaxen scalps, in the other 44 The 
Boy Marauder,” complete in one volume, price ten 
cents. 

44 Three pale-faced children,” she gasped, 44 were 
reading it in the tail end of an emigrant wagon* 
l crept up to them softly. Their parents are stih 


The Hoodlum Band. 159 

an aware of the accident,” and she sank helpless 2f 
his feet. 

“ Noble girl ! ” said the Boy Chief, gazing proud 
ly on her prostrate form ; “ and these are the peo^ 
pie that a military despotism expects to subdue ! ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

But the capture of several wagon-loads of com- 
missary whisky, and the destruction of two tons 
of stationery intended for the general command- 
ing, which interfered with his regular correspond- 
ence with the War Department, at last awakened 
the United States military authorities to active ex- 
ertion. A quantity of troops were massed before 
the “Pigeon Feet” encampment, and an attack 
was hourly imminent. 

“ Shine your boots, sir ? ” 

It was the voice of a youth in humble attire, 
standing before the flap of the commanding gen 
eral’s tent. 

The General raised his head from his corre 
Bpondence. 

“ Ah,” he said, looking down on the humble boy, 
“I see; I shall write that the appliances of civili- 
zation move steadily forward with the army. Yes, v 
ne added, “ you may shine my military boots. You 


160 Drift from Two Shores. 

understand, however, that to get your pay you must 
first ” — 

“ Make a requisition on the commissary-general, 
have it certified to by the quartermaster, counter- 
signed by the post-adjutant, and submitted by you 
to the War Department” — 

“And charged as stationery,” added the Gen- 
eral, gently. “ You are, I see, an intelligent and 
thoughtful boy. I trust you neither use whisky, 
tobacco, nor are ever profane ? ” 

“ I promised my sainted mother ” — 

“ Enough ! Go on with your blacking ; I have 
to lead the attack on the * Pigeon Feet ’ at eight 
precisely. It is now half-past seven,” said the 
General, consulting a large kitchen clock that stood 
in the corner of his tent. 

The little boot-black looked up ; the General was 
absorbed in his correspondence. The boot-black 
drew a tin putty blower from his pocket, took 
unerring aim, and nailed in a single shot the min- 
ute hand to the dial. Going on with his black- 
ing, yet stopping ever and anon to glance over the 
General’s plan of campaign, spread on the table 
before him, he was at last interrupted by the en- 
trance of an officer. 

“ Everything is ready for the attack, General. It 
Is now eight o’clock.” 

“ Impossible ! It is only half-past seven.” 


The Hoodlum Band. 


161 


•* .out my watch and the watches of your staff” — 

“ Are regulated by my kitchen clock, that has 
been in my family for years. Enough ! It is only 
half-past seven.” 

The officer retired ; the boot-black had finished 
one boot. Another officer appeared. 

“ Instead of attacking the enemy, General, we 
are attacked ourselves. Our pickets are already 
driven in.” 

“ Military pickets should not differ from other 
pickets,” interrupted the boot-black, modestly. “ To 
staud firmly they should be well driven in.” 

“ Ha ! there is something in that,” said the Gen- 
eral, thoughtfully. “ But who are you, who speak 
thus ? ” 

Rising to his full height, the boot-black threw off 
his outer rags, and revealed the figure of the Boy 
Chief of the “ Pigeon Feet.” 

“ Treason ! * shrieked the General ; “ order an 
advance along the whole line.” 

But in vain. The next moment he fell beneath 
the tomahawk of the Boy Chief, and within the 
next quarter of an hour the United States Army 
was dispersed. Thus ended the battle of Boot- 
black Creek. 

n 


162 


Drift from Two Shores. 


CHAPTER Y. 

And yet the Boy Chief was not entirely happy, 
Indeed, at times he seriously thought of accepting 
the invitation extended by the Great Chief at 
Washington, immediately after the massacre of the 
soldiers, and once more revisiting the haunts of 
civilization. His soul sickened in feverish inac- 
tivity ; schoolmasters palled on his taste ; he had 
introduced base ball, blind hooky, marbles, and 
peg-top among his Indian subjects, but only with 
‘ndifferent success. The squaws insisted in boring 
holes through the china alleys and wearing them as 
necklaces ; his warriors stuck spikes in their base 
ball bats and made war clubs of them. He could 
not but feel, too, that the gentle Mushymush, al- 
though devoted to her pale-faced brother, was defi- 
cient in culinary education. Her mince pies were 
abominable ; her jam far inferior to that made by 
his Aunt Sally of Doemville. Only an unexpected 
incident kept him equally from the extreme of list 
less Sybaritic indulgence, or of morbid cynicism 
Indeed, at the age of twelve, he already had be- 
come disgusted with existence. 

He had returned to his wigwam after an exhaust- 
ing buffalo hunt in which he had slain two hundred 
*nd seventy -five buffaloes with his own hand, no* 


The Hoodlum Band. 


163 


counting the individual buffalo on which he had 
leaped so as to join the herd, and which he after- 
ward led into the camp a captive and a present to 
the lovely Mushymush. He had scalped two ex- 
press riders and a correspondent of the “New York 
Herald ; ” had despoiled the Overland Mail Stage 
of a quantity of vouchers which enabled him to 
draw double rations from the government, and was 
reclining on a bear skin, smoking and thinking of 
the vanity of human endeavor, when a scout en- 
tered, saying that a pale-face youth had demanded 
aecess to his person. 

“ Is he a commissioner ? If so, say that the 
red man is rapidly passing to the happy hunting- 
grounds of his fathers, and now desires only peace, 
blankets, and ammunition ; obtain the latter and 
then scalp the commissioner.” 

“ But it is only a youth who asks an interview.” 

“ Does he look like an insurance agent ? If so, 
say that 1 have already policies in three Hartford 
?ompanies. Meanwhile prepare the stake, and see 
hat the squaws are ready with their implements 
of torture.” 

The youth was admitted ; he was evidently only 
half the age of the Boy Chief. As he entered the 
wigwam and stood revealed to his host they both 
started. In another moment they were locked in 
*ach other’s arms. 


164 


Drift from Two Shores. 


“ Jenky, old boy ! ” 

“ Bromley, old fel ! ” 

B. F. Jenkins, for such was the name of the 
Boy Chief, was the first to recover his calmness. 
Turning to his warriors he said, proudly : — 

“ Let my children retire while I speak to the 
agent of our Great Father in Washington. Here- 
after no latch keys will be provided for the wig- 
wams of the warriors. The practice of late hours 
must be discouraged.” 

“ How ! ” said the warriors, and instantly re- 
tired. 

“ Whisper,” said Jenkins, drawing his friend 
aside ; “I am known here only as the Boy Chief 
of the ‘Pigeon Toes.’” 

“And I,” said Bromley Chitterlings, proudly, 
“am known everywhere as the Pirate Prodigy — 
the Boy Avenger of the Patagonian Coast.” 

“ But how came you here ? ” 

“ Listen ! My pirate brig, the 4 Lively Mer- 
maid,’ now lies at Meiggs’s Wharf in San Fran* 
cisco, disguised as a Mendocino lumber vessel. My 
pirate crew accompanied me here in a palace car 
from San Francisco.” 

“ It must have been expensive,” said the prudent 
Jenkins. 

“ It was, but they defrayed it by a collection 
f rom the other passengers — you understand, an 


The Hoodlum Band . 


166 


enforced collection. The papers will be full of it 
to-morrow. Do you take the ‘New York Sun ?’” 

“No; I dislike their Indian policy. But why 
are you here ? ” 

“ Hear me, Jenk ! ’T is a long and a sad story. 
The lovely Eliza J. Sniffen, who fled with me from 
Doemville, was seized by her parents and torn from 
my arms at New Rochelle. Reduced to poverty 
by the breaking of the savings bank of which he 
was president, — a failure to which I largely con- 
tributed, and the profits of which I enjoyed, — I 
have since ascertained that Eliza Jane Sniffen was 
forced to become a schoolmistress, departed to take 
charge of a seminary in Colorado, and since then 
has never been heard from.” 

Why did the Boy Chief turn pale, and clutch at 
the tent-pole for support ? Why, indeed ! 

“ Eliza J. Sniffen,” gasped Jenkins, “ aged four- 
teen, red-haired, with a slight tendency to strabis- 
mus?” 

“ The same.” 

“ Heaven help me ! She died by my mandate ! ” 

“ Traitor ! ” shrieked Chitterlings, rushing at 
Jenkins with a drawn poniard. 

But a figure interposed. The slight girlish form 
of Mushymush with outstretched hands stood be- 
tween the exasperated Pirate Prodigy and the Boy 
Chief. 


166 Drift from Two Shores. 

“ Forbear,” she said sternly to Chitterlings $ 
u you know not what you do.” 

The two youths paused. 

“ Hear me,” she said rapidly. “ When captured 
in a confectioner’s shop at New Rochelle, E. J. 
Sr.iffen was taken back to poverty. She resolved 
to become a schoolmistress. Hearing of an open- 
ing in the West, she proceeded to Colorado to take 
exclusive charge of the pensionnat of Mad. Choflie, 
late of Paris. On the way thither she was cap- 
tured by the emissaries of the Boy Chief” — 

“ In consummation of a fatal vow I made never 
to spare educational instructors,” interrupted Jen- 
kins. 

“ But in her captivity,” continued Mushymush, 
“ she managed to stain her face with poke-berry 
juice, and mingling with the Indian maidens was 
enabled to pass for one of the tribe. Once unde- 
tected, she boldly ingratiated herself with the Boy 
Chief, — how honestly and devotedly he best can 
tell, — for I, Mushymush, the little sister of the 
Boy Chief, am Eliza Jane Sniffen.” 

The Pirate Prodigy clasped her in his arms. 
The Boy Chief, raising his hand, ejaculated : — 

“ Bless you, my children ! ” 

“There is but one thing wanting to complete 
this reunion,” said Chitterlings, after a pause, bu* 
the hurriei entrance of a scout stopped his utter 
%nce. 


The Hoodlum Band. 167 

“ A commissioner from the Great Father in 
Washington.” 

“ Scalp him ! ” shrieked the Boy Chief ; “ this is 
no time for diplomatic trifling.” 

“We have, but he still insists upon seeing you, 
and has sent in his card.” 

The Boy Chief took it, and read aloud, in ago- 
nized accents : — 

“ Charles F. Hall Golightly, late Page in United 
States Senate, and Acting Commissioner of United 
States ” 

In another moment, Golightly, pale, bleeding, 
and, as it were, prematurely bald, but still cold and 
intellectual, entered the wigwam. They fell upon 
his neck and begged his forgiveness. 

“ Don’t mention it,” he said, quietly ; “ these 
things must and will happen under our present sys- 
tem of government. My story is brief. Obtain- 
ing political influence through caucuses, I became 
at last Page in the Senate. Through the exertions 
of political friends I was appointed clerk to the 
commissioner whose functions I now represent. 
Knowing through political spies in your own camp 
who you were, I acted upon the physical fears of 
the commissioner, who was an ex-clergyman, and 
easily induced him to deputize me to consult with 
you. In doing so, I have lost my scalp, but as the 
hirsute signs of juvenility have worked against my 


168 


Drift from Two Shores. 


political progress I do not regret it. As a partially 
bald young man I shall have more power. The 
terms that I have to offer are simply this : you can 
do everything you want, go anywhere you choose, 
if you will only leave this place. I have a hun- 
dred thousand-dollar draft on the United States 
Treasury in my pocket at your immediate dis- 
posal.” 

“ But what ’s to become of me ? ” asked Chit- 
terlings. 

“ Your case has already been under advisement. 
The Secretary of State, who is an intelligent man, 
is determined to recognize you as de jure and de 
facto the only loyal representative of the Patago- 
nian government. You may safely proceed to Wash- 
ington as its envoy extraordinary. I dine with the 
secretary next week.” 

“ And yourself, old fellow ? ” 

“ I only wish that twenty years from now yon 
will recognize by your influence and votes the 
rights of C. F. H. Golightly to the presidency.” 

And here ends our story. Trusting that my 
dear young friends may take whatever example or 
moral their respective parents and guardians may 
deem fittest from these pages, I hope in futuro 
years to portray further the career of those three 
young heroes I have already introduced in the 
sprmg-rime of life to their charitable considers 
lion. 


THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT 
EASY. 



E was a spare man, and, physically, an ill- 
conditioned man, but at first glance 
scarcely a seedy man. The indications 
of reduced circumstances in the male of the better 
class are, I fancy, first visible in the boots and 
shirt ; the boots offensively exhibiting a degree of 
polish inconsistent with their dilapidated condition, 
and the shirt showing an extent of ostentatious sur- 
face that is invariably fatal to the threadbare waist- 
coat that it partially covers. He was a pale man, 
and, I fancied, still paler from his black clothes. 

He handed me a note. 

It was from a certain physician ; a man of broad 
culture and broader experience ; a man who had 
devoted the greater part of his active life to the 
alleviation of sorrow and suffering ; ' a man who had 
.ived up to the noble vows of a noble profession ; a 
man who locked in his honorable breast the secrets 
of a hundred families, whose face was as kindly, 
whose touch was as gentle, in the wards of the 
great public hospitals as it was beside the laced 


170 


Drift from Two Shores . 


curtains of the dying Narcissa ; a man who, through 
long contact with suffering, had acquired a univer- 
sal tenderness and breadth of kindly philosophy ; a 
man who, day and night, was at the beck and call 
of anguish ; a man who never asked the creed, be- 
lief, moral or worldly standing of the sufferer, or 
even his ability to pay the few coins that enabled 
him ^the physician) to exist and practice his call- 
ing ; in brief, a man who so nearly lived up to the 
example of the Great Master that it seems strange 
I am writing of him as a doctor of medicine and 
not of divinity. 

The note was in pencil, characteristically brief, 
and ran thus : — 

“ Here is the man I spoke of. He ought to be 
good material for you.” 

For a moment I sat looking from the note to the 
man, and sounding the “ dim perilous depths ” of 
my memory for the ’meaning of this mysterious 
communication. The good “material,” however, 
soon relieved my embarrassment by putting his 
hand on his waistcoat, coming toward me, and say- 
ing, “ It is just here, you can feel it.” 

It was not necessary for me to do so. In a flash 
I remembered that my medical friend had told me 
of a certain poor patient, once a soldier, who, among 
his other trials and uncertainties, was afflicted with 
an aneurism caused by the buckle of his knapsack 


The Man whose Yoke was not Easy. 171 

pressing upon the arch of the aorta. It was liable 
to burst at any shock or any moment. The poor 
fellow’s yoke had indeed been too heavy. 

In the presence of such a tremendous possibility 
I think for an instant I felt anxious only about 
myself. What I should do ; how dispose of the 
body ; how explain the circumstance of his taking 
off ; how evade the ubiquitous reporter and the 
coroner’s inquest ; how a suspicion might arise that 
I had in some way, through negligence or for some 
dark purpose, unknown to the jury, precipitated 
the catastrophe, all flashed before me. Even the 
note, with its darkly suggestive offer of “good 
material ” for me, looked diabolically significant. 
What might not an intelligent lawyer make of it? 

I tore it up instantly, and with feverish courtesy 
begged him to be seated. 

“ You don’t care to feel it ? ” he asked, a little 
anxiously. 

“ No.” 

“ Nor see it ? ” 

“ No.” 

He sighed, a trifle sadly, as if I had rejected the 
only favor he could bestow. I saw at once that he 
had been under frequent exhibition to the doctors, 
and that he was, perhaps, a trifle vain of this atten- 
tion. This perception was corroborated a Inomen t 
ater by his producing a copy of a medical maga- 


172 


Drift from Two Shores. 


eine, with a remark that on the sixth page I would 
find a full statement of his case. 

“ Could I serve him in any way ? ” I asked. 

It appeared that I could. If I could help him to 
any light employment, something that did not re- 
quire any great physical exertion or mental excite- 
ment, he would be thankful. But he wanted me 
to understand that he was not, strictly speaking, a 
poor man ; that some years before the discovery of 
his fatal complaint he had taken out a life insurance 
policy for five thousand dollars, and that he had 
raked and scraped enough together to pay it up, 
and that he would not leave his wife and four chil- 
dren destitute. “ You see,” he added, “ if I could 
find some sort of light work to do, and kinder sled 
along, you know — until” — 

He stopped, awkwardly. 

I have heard several noted actors thrill their 
audiences with a single phrase. I think I never 
was as honestly moved by any spoken word as that 
“until,” or the pause that followed it. He was 
evidently quite unconscious of its effect, for as I 
took a seat beside him on the sofa, and looked more 
closely in his waxen face, I could see that he was 
evidently embarrassed, and would have explained 
himself further, if I had not stopped him. 

Possibly it was the dramatic idea, or possibly 
ehaace, but a few days afterward, meeting a certain 


The Man whose Yoke was not Easy. 173 

fcind-hearted theatrical manager, I asked him if he 
had any light employment for a man who was an 
invalid? “Can he walk?” “Yes.” “Stand up 
for fifteen minutes?” “Yes.” “Then I’ll take 
him. He ’ll do for the last scene in the ‘ Destruc- 
tion of Sennacherib’ — it’s a tremendous thing, 
you know. We’ll have two thousand people on 
the stage.” I was a trifle alarmed at the title, and 
ventured to suggest (without betraying my poor 
friend’s secret) that he could not actively engage in 
the “Destruction of Sennacherib,” and that even 
the spectacle of it might be too much for him. 
“ Need n’t see it at all,” said my managerial friend ; 
“ put him in front, nothing to do but march in and 
march out, and dodge curtain.” 

He was engaged. I admit I was at times 
haunted by grave doubts as to whether I should 
not have informed the manager of his physical 
condition, and the possibility that he might some 
evening perpetrate a real tragedy on the mimic 
stage, but on the first performance of “ The De- 
struction of Sennacherib,” which I conscientiously 
attended, I was somewhat relieved. I had often 
been amused with the placid way in which the 
chorus in the opera invariably received the most 
astounding information, and witnessed the most ap- 
palling tragedies by poison or the block, without 
tnything more than a vocal protest or command, al 


174 Drift from Two Shores . 

ways delivered to the audience and never to the 
actors, but I think my poor friend’s utter impas- 
siveness to the wild carnage and the terrible exhi- 
bitions of incendiarism that were going on around 
him transcended even that. Dressed in a costume 
that seemed to be the very soul of anachronism, he 
stood a little outside the proscenium, holding a 
spear, the other hand pressed apparently upon the 
secret within his breast, calmly surveying, with his 
waxen face, the gay auditorium. I could not help 
thinking that there was a certain pride visible even 
in his placid features, as of one who was conscious 
that at any moment he might change this simulated 
catastrophe into real terror. I could not help say- 
ing this to the Doctor, who was with me. “ Yes,” 
he said with professional exactitude ; “ when it hap- 
pens he ’ll throw his arms up above his head, utter 
an ejaculation, and fall forward on his face, — it ’s 
a singular thing, they always fall forward on their 
face, — and they ’ll pick up the man as dead as Ju- 
lius Caesar.” 

After that, I used to go night after night, with a 
certain hideous fascination ; but, while it will be 
remembered the “ Destruction of Sennacherib ” 
had a tremendous run, it will also be remembered 
that not a single life was really lost during its rep- 
resentation. 

It was only a few weeks after this modest firs* 


The Man whose Yoke was not Easy. 175 

appearance on the boards of “ The Man with an 
Aneurism,” that, happening to be at dinner party 
of practical business men, I sought to interest them 
with the details of the above story, delivered with 
such skill and pathos as I could command. I re- 
gret to say that, as a pathetic story, it for a mo- 
ment seemed to be a dead failure. At last a prom- 
inent banker sitting next to me turned to me with 
the awful question : “ Why don’t your friend try to 
realize on his life insurance ? ” I begged his par- 
don, I did n’t quite understand. “ Oh, discount, 
sell out. Look here — (after a pause). Let him 
assign his policy to me, it ’s not much of a risk, on 
your statement, Well — I’ll give him his five 
thousand dollars, clear.” 

And he did. Under the advice of this cool- 
headed — I think I may add warm-hearted — 
banker, “ The Man with an Aneurism ” invested 
his money in the name of and for the benefit of his 
wife in certain securities that paid him a small but 
regular stipend. But he still continued upon the 
boards of the theatre. 

By reason of some business engagements that 
called me away from the city, I did not see my 
friend the physician for three months afterward. 
When I did I asked tidings of The Man with the 
Aneurism. The Doctor’s kind face grew sad. 
'‘I’m afraid — that is, I don’t exactly know 


176 Drift from Two Shores. 

whether I ’ve good news or bad. Did you ever see 
his wife ? ” 

I never had. 

“ Well, she was younger than he, and rather at- 
tractive. One of those doll-faced women. You 
remember, he settled that life insurance policy on 
her and the children : she might have waited ; 
she did n’t. The other day she eloped with some 
fellow, I don’t remember his name, with the chil- 
dren and the five thousand dollars.” 

“ And the shock killed him,” I said with poetic 
promptitude. 

“ No — that is — not yet ; I saw him yester- 
day,” said the Doctor, with conscientious profes- 
sional precision, looking over his list of calls. 

“ Well, where is the poor fellow now ? ” 

“ He ’s still at the theatre. James, if these pow- 
ders are called for, you’ll find them here in this en* 
velope. Tell Mrs. Blank I ’ll be there at seven — 
and she can give the baby this until I come. Say 
there ’s no danger. These women are an awful 
bother ! Yes, he ’s at the theatre yet. Which 
way are you going? Down town? Why can’t 
you step into my carriage, and I ’ll give you a lift, 
and we ’ll talk on the way down ? Well — he’s 
at the theatre yet. And — and — do you rem 3m- 
ber the ‘ Destruction of Sennacherib ? ’ No ? Yes 
vou do. You remember that woman in pink, who 


The Man whose Yoke was not Easy. 177 

pirouetted in the famous ballet scene ! You don’t ? 
Why, yes you do! Well, I imagine, of course I 
don’t know, it ’s only a summary diagnosis, but I 
imagine that our friend with the aneurism has at- 
tached himself to her.” 

“ Doctor, you horrify me.” 

“There are more things, Mr. Poet, in heaven 
and earth than are yet dreamt of in your philoso- 
phy. Listen. My diagnosis may be wrong, but 
that woman called the other day at my office to ask 
about him, his health, and general condition. I 
told her the truth — and she fainted. It was 
about as dead a faint as I ever saw ; I was nearly 
an hour in briuging her out of it. Of course it 
was the heat of the room, her exertions the pre- 
ceding week, and I prescribed for her. Queer, 
was n’t it ? Now, if I were a writer, and had your 
faculty, I ’d make something out of that.” 

“ But how is his general health ? ” 

“ Oh, about the same. He can’t evade what 
will come, you know, at any moment. He was up 
here the other day. Why, the pulsation was as 
plain — why, the entire arch of the aorta — What! 
you get out here ? Good-by.” 

Of course no moralist, no man writing for a sen- 
sitive and strictly virtuous public, could further in- 
terest himself in this man. So I dismissed him at 
once from my mind, and returned to the literary 
12 


178 Drift from Two Shores. 

contemplation of virtue that was clearly and posi- 
tively defined, and of Sin, that invariably com- 
menced with a capital letter. That this man, in 
his awful condition, hovering on the verge of eter- 
nity, should allow himself to be attracted by — but 
it was horrible to contemplate. 

Nevertheless, a month afterwards, I was return- 
ing from a festivity with my intimate friend Smith, 
my distinguished friend Jobling, my most respect- 
able friend Robinson, and my wittiest friend Jones. 
It was a clear, star-lit morning, and we seemed to 
hold the broad, beautiful avenue to ourselves ; and 
I fear we acted as if it were so. As we hilariously 
passed the corner of Eighteenth Street, a coupe 
rolled by, and I suddenly heard my name called 
from its gloomy depths. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said the Doctor, as his 
driver drew up by the sidewalk, “ but I ’ve some 
news for you. I ’ve just been to see our poor 

friend . Of course I was too late. He was 

gone in a flash.” 

“ What ! dead ? ” 

“ As Pharaoh ! In an instant, just as I said. 
You see, the rupture took place in the descending 
arch of ” — 

“ But, Doctor ! ” 

“ It ’s a queer story. Am I keeping you from 
your friends? No? Well, you see she — that 


The Man . whose Yoke was not Easy. 1T9 

woman I spoke of — had written a note to him 
based on what I had told her. He got it, and 
dropped in his dressing-room, dead as a herring.” 

“ How could she have been so cruel, knowing 
his condition ? She might, with woman’s tact, 
have rejected him less abruptly.” 

“Yes; but you ’re all wrong. By Jove ! she 
accepted him ! was willing to marry him ! ” 

“ What?” 

“ Yes. Don’t you see ? It was joy that killed 
him. Gad, we never thought of that / Queer, 
ain’t it ? See here, don’t you think you might 
make a story out of it ? ” 

“ But, Doctor, it has n’t got any moral.” 

“ Humph ! That ’s so. Good morning. Drive 
Bn, John.” 


MY FRIEND, THE TRAMP. 


HAD been sauntering over the clover 
downs of a certain noted New England 
seaport. It was a Sabbath morning, so 
singularly reposeful and gracious, so replete with 
the significance of the seventh day of rest, that even 
the Sabbath bells ringing a mile away over the salt 
marshes had little that was monitory, mandatory, 
or even supplicatory in their drowsy voices. Rather 
they seemed to call from their cloudy towers, like 
some renegade muezzin : “ Sleep is better than 
prayer ; sleep on, O sons of the Puritans ! Slumber 
Btill, O deacons and vestrymen ! Let, oh let those 
feet that are swift to wickedness curl up beneath 
thee ! those palms that are itching for the shekels 
of the ungodly lie clasped beneath thy pillow ! 
Sleep is better than prayer.” 

And, indeed, though it was high morning, sleep 
was still in the air. Wrought upon at last by the 
combined influences of sea and sky and atmos- 
phere, I succumbed, and lay down on one of the 
boulders of a little stony slope that gave upon the 
sea. The great Atlantic lay before me, not yet 



181 


My Friend, the Tramp . 

quite awake, but slowly heaving the rhythmical 
expiration of slumber. There was .no sail visible 
in the misty horizon. There was nothing to do 
but to lie and stare at the unwinking ether. 

Suddenly I became aware of the strong fumes of 
tobacco. Turning my head, I saw a pale blue 
smoke curling up from behind an adjacent bouldei 
Rising, and climbing over the intermediate granite, 
I came upon a little hollow, in which, comfortably 
extended on the mosses and lichens, lay a power- 
fully-built man. He was very ragged; he was 
very dirty; there was a strong suggestion about 
him of his having too much hair, too much nail, too 
much perspiration ; too much of those superfluous 
excrescences and exudations that society and civili- 
zation strive to keep under. But it was noticeable 
that he had not much of anything else. It was The 
Tramp. 

With that swift severity with which we always 
visit rebuke upon the person who happens to pre- 
sent any one of our vices offensively before us, in 
his own person, I was deeply indignant at his lazi- 
ness. Perhaps I showed it in my manner, for 
he rose to a half-sitting attitude, returned my 
stare apologetically, and made a movement to- 
ward knocking the fire from his pipe against the 
granite. 

u Shure, sur, and if I ’d belaved that I was tris- 


182 


Drift from Two Shores. 


passin on yer honor’s grounds, it’s meself that 
would hev laid down on the say shore and takin 
the salt waves for me blankits. But it’s sivinteen 
miles I ’ve walked this blessed noight, with nothin 
to sustain me, and hevin’ a mortal waken ess to fight 
wid in me bowels, by reason of starvation, and only 
a bit o’ baccy that the Widdy Maloney giv’ me at 
the cross roads, to kape me up entoirley. But it 
was the dark day I left me home in Milwaukee to 
walk to Boston ; and if ye ’ll oblige a lone man who 
has left a wife and six children in Milwaukee, wid 
the loan of twenty-five cints, furninst the time he 
gits worruk, God ’ll be good to ye.” 

It instantly flashed through my mind that the 
man before me had the previous night partaken of 
the kitchen hospitality of my little cottage, two 
miles away. That he presented himself in the 
guise of a distressed fisherman, mulcted of his wages 
by an inhuman captain ; that he had a wife lying 
sick of consumption in the next village, and two 
children, one of whom was a cripple, wandering in 
the streets of Boston. I remembered that this tre- 
mendous indictment against Fortune touched the 
family, and that the distressed fisherman was pro- 
vided with clothes, food, and some small change. 
The food and small change had disappeared, but 
the garments for the consumptive wife, where were 
they ? He had been using them for a pillow. 


183 


, My Friend , the Tramp. 

I instantly pointed out this fact, and charged him 
*rith the deception. To my surprise, he took it 
quietly, and even a little complacently. 

“ Bedad, yer roight ; ye see, sur” (confidentially), 
‘ ye see, sur, until I get worruk — and it ’s worruk 
I ’m lukin’ for — I have to desave now and thin to 
Bhute the locality. Ah, God save us ! but on the 
gay-coast thay ’r that har-rud upon thim that don’t 
belong to the say.” 

I ventured to suggest that a strong, healthy man 
like him might have found work somewhere be- 
tween Milwaukee and Boston. 

“ Ah, but ye see I got free passage on a freight 
train, and didn’t sthop. It was in the Aist that I 
expected to find worruk.” 

“ Have you any trade ? ” 

“Trade, is it? I’m a brickmaker, God knows, 
and many ’s the lift I ’ve had at makin’ bricks in 
Milwaukee. Shure, I ’ve as aisy a hand at it as any 
man. Maybe yer honor might know of a kill here- 
about ? ” 

Now to my certain knowledge, there was not a 
brick kiln within fifty miles of that spot, and of all 
unlikely places to find one would have been this 
Bandy peninsula, given up to the summer residences 
of a few wealthy people. Yet I could not help ad- 
miring the assumption of the scamp, who knew 
ihis fact as well as myself. But I said, “I can 


184 


Drift from Two Shores. 

give you work for a day or two ; ” and, bidding him 
gather up his sick wife’s apparel, led the way across 
the downs to my cottage. At first I think the offer 
took him by surprise, and gave him some conster- 
nation, but he presently recovered his spirits, and 
almost instantly his speech. “ Ah, worruk, is it ? 
God be praised! it’s meself that’s ready and willin’. 
’Though maybe me hand is spoilt wid brick- 
makinV’ 

I assured him that the work I would give him 
would require no delicate manipulation, and so we 
fared on over the sleepy downs. But I could not 
help noticing that, although an invalid, I was a 
much better pedestrian than my companion, fre- 
quently leaving him behind, and that even as a 
“ tramp,” he was etymologically an impostor. He 
had a way of lingering beside the fences we had to 
climb over, as if to continue more confidentially the 
history of his misfortunes and troubles, which he 
was delivering to me during our homeward walk, 
and I noticed that he could seldom resist the invi- 
tation of a mossy boulder or a tussock of salt grass, 
“ Ye see, sur,” he would say, suddenly sitting down. 
“ it ’s along uv me misfortunes beginnin’ in Mil- 
waukee that ” — and it was not until I was out of 
hearing that he would languidly gather his traps 
again and saunter after me. When I reached my 
awn garden gate he leaned for a moment over it^ 


185 


My Friend , the Tramp . 

with both of his powerful arms extended down- 
ward, and said, “Ah, but it ’s a blessin’ that Sunday 
comes to give rest fur the wake and the weary, 
and them as walks sivinteen miles to get it.” Of 
course I took the hint. There was evidently no 
work to be had from my friend, the Tramp, that 
day. Yet his countenance brightened as he saw 
the limited extent of my domain, and observed that 
the garden, so called, was only a flower-bed about 
twenty-five by ten. As he had doubtless before 
this been utilized, to the extent of his capacity, in 
digging, he had probably expected that kind of 
work ; and I daresay I discomfited him by pointing 
him to an almost leveled stone wall, about twenty 
feet long, with the remark that his work would be 
the rebuilding of that stone wall, with stone brought 
from the neighboring slopes. In a few moments 
he was comfortably provided for in the kitchen, 
where the cook, a woman of his own nativity, 
apparently, “ chaffed ” him with a raillery that 
was to me quite unintelligible. Yet I noticed that 
when, at sunset, he accompanied Bridget to the 
spring for water, ostentatiously flourishing the 
empty bucket in his hand, when they returned 
in the gloaming Bridget was carrying the water, 
and my friend, the Tramp, was some paces be- 
hind her, cheerfully “ colloguing,” and picking 
olackberries. 


186 Drift from Two Shores. 

At seven the next morning he started in cheer* 
fully to work. At nine, a. m., he had placed three 
large stones on the first course in position, an hour 
having been spent in looking for a pick and ham- 
mer, and in the incidental “ chaffing” with Bridget. 
At ten o ’clock I went to overlook his work ; it was 
a rash action, as it caused him to respectfully doff 
his hat, discontinue his labors, and lean back against 
the fence in cheerful and easy conversation. “Are 
you fond uv blackberries, Captain?” I told him 
that the children were in the habit of getting them 
from the meadow beyond, hoping to estop the sug- 
gestion I knew was coming. “ Ah, but, Captain, 
it’s meself that with wanderin’ and havin’ nothin’ 
to pass me lips but the berries I ’d pick from the 
hedges, — it’s meself knows where to find thim. 
Sure, it’s yer childer, and foine boys they are, 
Captain, that’s besaching me to go wid ’em to the 
place, known’st only to meself.” It is unnecessary 
o say that he triumphed. After the manner of 
vagabonds of all degrees, he had enlisted the women 
and children on his side — and my friend, the Tramp, 
had his own way. He departed at eleven and re- 
turned at four, p. m., with a tin dinner-pail half 
tilled. On interrogating the boys it appeared that 
they had had a “ bully time,” but on cross-examina- 
tion it came out that they had picked the berries 
From four to six, three more stones were laid, an<f 


187 


My Friend , the Tramp. 

the arduous labors of the da} were over. As I 
stood looking at the first course of six stones, my 
friend, the Tramp, stretched his strong arms out to 
their fullest extent and said : “ Ay, but it ’s worruk 
that ’s good for me ; give me worruk, and it ’ s all 
I ’ll be askin’ fur.” 

I ventured to suggest that he had not yet accom- 
plished much. 

“Wait till to-morror. Ah, but ye’ll see thm. 
It ’s me hand that ’s yet onaisy wid brick-makin* 
and sthrange to the shtones. An ye ’ll wait till 
to-morror ? ” 

Unfortunately I did not wait. An engagement 
took me away at an early hour, and when I rode 
up to my cottage at noon my eyes were greeted 
with the astonishing spectacle of my two boys hard 
at work laying the courses of the stone wall, 
assisted by Bridget and Norah, who were drag- 
ging stones from the hillsides, while comfortably 
stretched on the top of the wall lay my friend, the 
Tramp, quietly overseeing the operation with lazy 
and humorous comment. For an instant I was 
foolishly indignant, but he soon brought me to my 
senses. “ Shure. sur, it ’s only lamin’ the boys the 
habits uv industhry I was — and may they niver 
know, be the same token, what it is to worruk fur 
the bread betune their lips. Shure it ’s but makin 
'em think it play I was. As fur the colleens beyint 


188 


Drift from Two Shores . 


in the kitchen, sure is n’t it betther they was help- 
ing your honor here than colloguing with them- 
selves inside ?” 

Nevertheless, I thought it expedient to forbid 
henceforth any interruption of servants or children 
with my friend’s “ worruk.” Perhaps it was the 
result of this embargo that the next morning early 
the Tramp wanted to see me. 

“ And it ’s sorry I am to say it to ye, sur,” he 
began, “ but it ’s the handlin’ of this stun that ’s 
desthroyin’ me touch at the brick-makin’, and it ’s 
better I should lave ye and find worruk at me 
own thrade. For it ’s worruk I am nadin’. It 
is n’t meself, Captain, to ate the bread of oidleness 
here. And so good-by to ye, and if it ’s fifty cints 
ye can be givin’ me ontil I ’ll find a kill — it ’s God 
that ’ll repay ye.” 

He got the money. But he got also conditionally 
a note from me to my next neighbor, a wealthy 
retired physician, possessed of a large domain, a 
man eminently practical and business-like in his 
management of it. He employed many laborers 
on the sterile waste he called his “ farm,” and it 
occurred to me that if there really was any work in 
my friend, the Tramp, which my own indolence and 
preoccupation had failed to bring out, he was the 
man to do it. 

I met him a week after. It was with soma 


189 


My Friend, the Tramp. 

embarrassment that I inquired after my friend, the 
Tramp. “ Oh, yes,” he said, reflectively, “ let ’s 
see : he came Monday and left me Thursday. He 
was, I think, a stout, strong man, a well-mean- 
ing, good-humored fellow, but afflicted with a most 
singular variety of diseases. The first day I put 
him at work in the stables he developed chills and 
fever caught in the swamps of Louisiana ” — 

“ Excuse me,” I said hurriedly, “ you mean in 
Milwaukee ! ” 

“ I know what I ’m talking about,” returned the 
Doctor, testily ; “ he told me his whole wretched 
story — his escape from the Confederate service, 
the attack upon him by armed negroes, his con- 
cealment in the bayous and swamps ” — 

“ Go on, Doctor,” I said, feebly ; “ you were 
speaking of his work.” 

“ Yes. Well, his system was full of malaria ; 
the first day I had him wrapped up in blankets, 
and dosed with quinine. The next day he was 
taken with all the symptoms of cholera morbus, 
and I had to keep him up on brandy and capsi- 
cum. Rheumatism set in on the following day, 
and incapacitated him fo 1 ' work, and I concluded 
I had better give him a note to the director of the 
City Hospital than keep him here. As a patho- 
ogical study he was good ; but as I was looking for 
a man to help about the stable, I could n’t afford 
T o keep him in both capacities.” 


L90 


Drift from Two Shores . 


As I never could really tell when the Doctor 
was in joke or in earnest, I dropped the subject. 
And so my friend, the Tramp, gradually faded from 
my memory, not however without leaving behind 
him in the barn where he had slept a lingering 
flavor of whisky, onions, and fluffiness. But in 
two weeks this had gone, and the “ Shebang ” (as 
my friends irreverently termed my habitation) 
knew him no more. Yet it was pleasant to think 
of him as having at last found a job at brick-mak- 
ing, or having returned to his family at Milwaukee, 
or making his Louisiana home once more happy 
with his presence, or again tempting the fish-pro- 
ducing main — this time with a noble and equitable 
captain. 

It was a lovely August morning when I rode 
across the sandy peninsula to visit a certain noted 
family, whereof all the sons were valiant and the 
daughters beautiful. The front of the house was 
deserted, but on the rear veranda I heard the rustle 
of gowns, and above it arose what seemed to be the 
voice of Ulysses, reciting his wanderings. There 
was no mistaking that voice, it was my friend, the 
Tramp ! 

From what I could hastily gather from his 
speech, he had walked from St. John, N. B., to re 
join a distressed wife in New York, who was, how- 
ever, living with opulent but objectionable relatives, 


191 


My Friend , the Tramp. 

‘ An* shure, miss, I would n’t be askin’ ye the loan 
of a cint if I could get worruk at me trade of car- 
pet-wavin’ — and may be ye know of some manu- 
factory where they wave carpets beyant here. Ah, 
miss, and if ye don’t give me a cint, it ’s enough 
for the loikes of me to know that me troubles has 
brought the tears in the most beautiful oiyes in the 
wurruld, and God bless ye for it, miss ! ” 

Now I knew that the Most Beautiful Eyes in 
the World belonged to one of the most sympathetic 
and tenderest hearts in the world, and I felt that 
common justice demanded my interference between 
it and one of the biggest scamps in the world. So, 
without waiting to be announced by the servant, I 
opened the door, and joined the group on the ve- 
randa. 

If I expected to touch the conscience of my 
friend, the Tramp, by a dramatic entrance, I failed 
utterly ; for no sooner did he see me, than he in- 
stantly gave vent to a howl of delight, and, falling 
on his knees before me, grasped my hand, and 
turned oratorically to the ladies. 

“Oh, but it’s himself — himself that has come 
as a witness to me carrakther! Oh, but it’s him- 
self that lifted me four wakes ago, when I was lyin’ 
with a mortal wakeness on the say-coast, and tuk 
me to his house. Oh, but it ’s himself that shup- 
ported me over the faldes, and whin the chills and 


192 


Drift from Two Shores . 


faver came on me and 1 shivered wid the cold, it 
was himself, God bless him, as sthripped the coat 
off his back, and giv it me, sayin’, ‘ Take it, Dinnis, 
it ’s shtarved with the cowld say air ye ’ll be en- 
toirely.’ Ah, but look at him — will ye, miss ! 
Look at his swate, modist face — a blushin’ like 
your own, miss. Ah ! look at him, will ye ? He ’ll 
be denyin’ of it in a minit — may the blessin’ uv 
God folly him. Look at him, miss ! Ah, but 
it’s a swate pair ye’d make! (the rascal knew I 
was a married man.) Ah, miss, if you could see 
him wroightin’ day and night with such an illigant 
hand of his own — (he had evidently believed 
from the gossip of my servants that I was a pro- 
fessor of chirography) — if ye could see him, miss, 
as I have, ye ’d be proud of him.'’ 

He stopped out of breath. I was so completely 
astounded I could say nothing : the tremendous in- 
dictment I had framed to utter as I opened the door 
vanished completely. And as the Most Beautiful 
Eyes in the Wurruld turned gratefully to mine — 
well — 

I still retained enough principle to ask the ladies 
to withdraw, while I would take upon myself the 
duty of examining into the case of my friend, the 
Tramp, and giving him such relief as was required. 
(I did not know until afterward, however, that the 
•ascal had already despoiled their scant purses of 


My Friend , the Tramp. 198 

three dollars and fifty cents.) When the door was 
closed upon them I turned upon him. 

“You infernal rascal!” 

“ Ah, Captain, and would ye be refusin’ me a 
carrakther and me givin’ ye such a one as Oi did ! 
God save us ! but if ye ’d hav’ seen the luk that 
the purty one give ye. Well, before the chills and 
faver bruk me spirits entirely, when I was a young 
man, and makin’ me tin dollars a week brick-makin’, 
it ’s meself that wud hav’ given ” — 

“ I consider, ” I broke in, “ that a dollar is a fair 
price for your story, and as I shall have to take it 
all back and expose you before the next twenty- 
four hours pass, I think you had better hasten to 
Milwaukee, New York, or Louisiana.” 

I handed him the dollar. “ Mind, I don’t want 
to see your face again.” 

“ Ye wun’t, Captain.” 

And I did not. 

But it so chanced that later in the season, when 
the migratory inhabitants had flown to their hot- 
air registers in Boston and Providence, I break- 
fasted with one who had lingered. It was a certain 
Boston lawyer, — replete with principle, honesty, 
self-discipline, statistics, aesthetics, and a perfect con- 
sciousness of possessing all these virtues, and a full 
recognition of their market values. I think he tol- 
erated me as a kind of foreigner, gently but firmly 
13 


194 


Drift from Two Shores . 


waiving all argument on any topic, frequently dia« 
trusting my facts, generally my deductions, and al- 
ways my ideas. In conversation he always ap- 
peared to descend only half way down a long 
moral and intellectual staircase, and always de- 
livered his conclusions over the balusters. 

I had been speaking of my friend, the Tramp. 
“ There is but one way of treating that class of im- 
postors ; it is simply to recognize the fact that the 
law calls him a ‘ vagrant/ and makes his trade a 
misdemeanor. Any sentiment on the other side 
renders you particeps criminis. I don’t know but 
an action would lie against you for encouraging 
tramps. Now, I have an efficacious way of dealing 
with these gentry.” He rose and took a double- 
barreled fowling-piece from the chimney. ‘‘When 
a tramp appears on my property, I warn him off. 
If he persists, I fire on him — as I would on any 
criminal trespasser.” 

“ Fire on him? ” I echoed in alarm. 

“Yes — but with ‘powder only ! Of course he 
does n’t know that. But he does n’t come back.” 

It struck me for the first time that possibly many 
other of my friend’s arguments might be only blank 
cartridges, and used to frighten off other trespass- 
ing intellects. 

“ Of course, if the tramp still persisted, I would 
be justified in using shot. Last evening I had a 


195 


My Friend , the Tramp. 

visit from one. He was coming over the wall. My 
shot gun was efficacious; you should have seen 
him run ! ” 

It was useless to argue with so positive a mind, 
and I dropped the subject. After breakfast I 
strolled over the downs, my friend promising to 
join me as soon as he arranged some household 
business. 

It was a lovely, peaceful morning, not unlike the 
day when I first met my friend, the Tramp. The 
hush of a great benediction lay on land and sea. 
A few white sails twinkled afar, but sleepily ; 
one or two large ships were creeping in lazily, 
like my friend, the Tramp. A voice behind me 
startled me. 

My host had rejoined me. His face, however, 
looked a little troubled. 

“ I just now learned something of imporlfmce,” 
he began. “ It appears that with all my precau- 
tions that Tramp has visited my kitchen, and the 
servants have entertained him. Yesterday morn- 
ing, it appears, while I was absent, he had the au- 
dacity to borrow my gun to go duck-shooting. At 
the end of two or three hours he returned with twc 
ducks and — the gun.” 

“ That was, at least, honest.” 

“Yes — but! That fool of a girl says that, as 
he handed back the gun, he told her it was all right 


196 Drift from Two Shores . 

and that he had loaded it up again to save the mas- 
ter trouble.” 

I think I showed my concern in my face, for he 
added, hastily: “It was only duck-shot; a few 
would n’t hurt him ! ” 

Nevertheless, we both walked on in silence for a 
moment. 

“ I thought the gun kicked a little,” he said at 
last, musingly ; “ but the idea of — Hallo ! what *s 
this?” 

He stopped before the hollow where I had first 
seen my Tramp. It was deserted, but on the 
mosses there were spots of blood and fragments of 
an old gown, blood-stained, as if used for band- 
ages. I looked at it closely : it was the gown in- 
tended for the consumptive wife of my friend, the 
Tramp. 

But my host was already nervously tracking the 
blood-stains that on rock, moss, and boulder were 
steadily leading toward the sea. When I over- 
took him at last on the shore, he was standing be- 
fore a flat rock, on which lay a bundle I recog- 
nized, tied up in a handkerchief, and a crooked 
grape-vine stick. 

“ He may have come here to wash his wounds — - 
salt is a styptic,” said my host, who had recovered 
his correct precision of statement. 

I said nothing, but looked toward the sea 


197 


My Friend , the Tramp. 

Whatever secret lay hid in its breast, it kept it 
fast. Whatever its calm eyes had seen that sum 
mer night, it gave no reflection now. It lay there 
passive, imperturbable, and reticent. But my 
friend, the Tramp, was gone I 


THE MAN FROM SOLANO. 



I E came toward me out of an opera lobby, 
between the acts, — a figure as remark- 
able as anything in the performance. His 
clothes, no two articles of which were of the same 
color, had the appearance of having been purchased 
and put on only an hour or two before, — a fact 
more directly established by the clothes-dealer’s 
ticket which still adhered to his coat-collar, giving 
the number, size, and general dimensions of that 
garment somewhat obtrusively to an uninterested 
public. His trousers had a straight line down each 
leg, as if he had been born flat but had since devel- 
oped ; and there was another crease down his back, 
like those figures children cut out of folded paper. 
I may add that there was no consciousness of this 
in his face, which was good-natured, and, but for a 
certain squareness in the angle of his lower jaw, 
utterly uninteresting and commonplace. 

“You disremember me,” he said, briefly, as he 
extended his hand, “but I’m from Solano, in Cal- 
iforny. I met you there in the spring of ’57. I 
was tendin’ sheep, and you was burnin’ charcoal.” 


The Man from Solano. 


19S 


There was not the slightest trace of any inten- 
tional rudeness in the reminder. It was simply a 
statement of fact, and as such to be accepted. 

“ What I hailed ye for was only this,” he said, 
after I had shaken hands with him. “ I saw you a 
in innit ago standin’ over in yon box — chirpin’ w’th 
a lady — a young lady, peart and pretty. Might 
you be telling me her name ? ” 

I gave him the name of a certain noted belle of a 
neighboring city, who had lately stirred the hearts 
of the metropolis, and who was especially admired 
by the brilliant and fascinating young Dashboard, 
who stood beside me. 

The Man from Solano mused for a moment, and 
then said, “Thet’s so! thet’s the name! It’s the 
Bame gal ! ” 

“ You have met her, then ? ” I asked, in surprise. 

“ Ye-es,” he responded, slowly : “ I met her about 
fower months ago. She’d bin makin’ a tour of 
Californy with some friends, and I first saw her 
aboard the cars this side of Reno. She lost her 
baggage checks, and I found them on the floor 
and gave ’em back to her, and she thanked me. I 
reckon now it would be about the square thing 
to go over thar and sorter recognize her.” He 
stopped a moment, and looked at us inquiringly. 

“ My dear sir,” struck in the brilliant and fasci- 
nating Dashboard, “if your hesitation proceed* 


200 Drift from Two Shores . 

from any doubt as to the propriety of your attire, 1 
beg you to dismiss it from your mind at once. The 
tyranny of custom, it is true, compels your friend 
and myself to dress peculiarly, but I assure you 
nothing could be finer than the way that the olive 
green of your coat melts in the delicate yellow of 
your cravat, or the pearl gray of your trousers 
blends with the bright blue of your waistcoat, and 
lends additional brilliancy to that massive oroide 
watch-chain which you wear.” 

To my surprise, the Man from Solano did not 
strike him. He looked at the ironical Dashboard 
with grave earnestness, and then said quietly : — 

“ Then I reckon you would n’t mind showin’ me 
in thar ? ” 

Dashboard was, I admit, a little staggered at this. 
But he recovered himself, and bowing ironically, 
led the way to the box. I followed him and the 
Man from Solano. 

Now, the belle in question happened to be a 
gentlewoman — descended from gentlewomen — ■ 
and after Dashboard’s ironical introduction, in 
which the Man from Solano was not spared, she 
comprehended the situation instantly. To Dash- 
board’s surprise she drew a chair to her side, made 
the Man from Solano sit down, quietly turned her 
back on Dashboard, and in full view of the brilliant 
audience and the focus of a hundred lorgnettes, 
entered into conversation with him. 


The Man from Solano. 


201 


Here, for the sake of romance, I should like to 
lay he became animated, and exhibited some trait 
of excellence, — some rare wit or solid sense. But 
the fact is he was dull and stupid to the last degree. 
He persisted in keeping the conversation upon the 
subject of the lost baggage-checks, and every bright 
attempt of the lady to divert him failed signally. 
At last, to everybody’s relief, be rose, and leaning 
over her chair, said : — 

“ I calklate to stop over here some time, miss, 
and you and me bein’ sorter strangers here, maybe 
when there ’s any show like this goin’ on you ’ll let 
me ” — 

Miss X. said somewhat hastily that the multi- 
plicity of her engagements and the brief limit of 
her stay in New York she feared would, etc., etc. 
The two other ladies had their handkerchiefs over 
their mouths, and were staring intently on the 
stage, when the Man from Solano continued : — 

“Then, maybe, miss, whenever there is a show 
goin’ on that you’ll attend, you’ll just drop me 
word to Earle’s Hotel, to this yer address,” and he 
pulled from his pocket a dozen well-worn letters, 
and taking the buff envelope from one, handed it 
to her with something like a bow. 

“ Certainly,” broke in the facetious Dashboard 
'* Miss X. goes to the Charity Ball to-morrow night 
The tickets are but a trifie to an opulent Califor 


202 Drift from Two Shores. 

man, and a man of your evident means, and the 
object a worthy one. You will, no doubt, easily 
secure an invitation.” 

Miss X. raised her handsome eyes for a moment 
to Dashboard. “ By all means,” she said, turning 
to the Man from Solano ; “ and as Mr. Dashboard 
is one of the managers and you are a stranger, he 
will, of course, send you a complimentary ticket. 
I have known Mr. Dashboard long enough to know 
that he is invariably courteous to strangers and a 
gentleman.” She settled herself in her chair again 
and fixed her eyes upon the stage. 

The Man from Solano thanked the Man of New 
York, and then, after shaking hands with every- 
body in the box, turned to go. When he had 
reached the door he looked back to Miss X., and 
said, — 

“ It was one of the queerest things in the world, 
miss, that my findin’ them checks ” — 

But the curtain had just then risen on the gar- 
den scene in “ Faust,” and Miss X. was absorbed. 
The Man from Solano carefully shut the box door 
and retired. I followed him. 

He was silent until he reached the lobby, and 
then he said, as if renewing a previous conversation, 
“ She is a mighty peart gal — that ’s so. She ’a 
nist my kind, and will make a stavin’ good wife.” 

I thought I saw danger ahead for the Man from 


208 


The Man from Solano. 

Solano, so I hastened to tell him that she was beset 
by attentions, that she could have her pick and 
choice of the best of society, and finally, that she 
was, most probably, engaged to Dashboard. 

“ That ’s so,” he said quietly, without the slight- 
est trace of feeling. “ It would be mighty queer it 
she wasn’t. But I reckon I’ll steer down to the 
ho-tel. I don’t care much for this yellin’.” (He 
was alluding to a cadenza of that famous cantatrice, 
Signora Batti Batti.) “ What ’s the time ? ” 

He pulled out his watch. It was such a glaring 
chain, so obviously bogus, that my eyes were fas- 
cinated by it. “You’re loooking at that watch,” 
he said ; “ it ’s purty to look at, but she don’t go 
worth a cent. And yet her price was $125, gold. 
I gobbled her up in Chatham Street day before 
yesterday, where they were selling ’em very cheap 
at auction.” 

“ You have been outrageously swindled,” I said, 
indignantly. “ Watch and chain are not worth 
twenty dollars.” 

“ Are they worth fifteen ? ” he asked, gravely. 

“ Possibly.” 

“Then I reckon it’s a fair trade. Ye see, I 
told ’em I was a Californian from Solano, and 
bad n’t anything about me of greenbacks. I had 
ihree slugs with me. Ye remember them slugs ? ” 
T did ; the “ slug ” was a “ token ” issued in the 


204 


Drift from Two Shores. 


early days — a hexagonal piece of gold a little 
over twice the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece — ■ 
worth and accepted for fifty dollars.) 

“ Well. I handed them that, and they handed me 
the watch. You see them slugs I had made my- 
self outer brass filings and iron pyrites, and used to 
slap ’em down on the boys for a bluff in a game of 
draw poker. You see, not being reg’lar gov’ment 
money, it was n’t counterfeiting. I reckon they 
cost me, counting time and anxiety, about fifteen 
dollars. So, if this yer watch is worth that, it’s 
about a square game, ain’t it ? ” 

I began to understand the Man from Solano, and 
said it was. He returned his watch to his pocket, 
toyed playfully with the chain, and remarked, 
“ Kinder makes a man look fash’nable and wealthy, 
don’t it?” 

I agreed with him. “ But what do you intend to 
do here ? ” I asked. 

“ Well, I ’ve got a cash capital of nigh on seven 
hundred dollars. I guess until I get into reg’lar 
business I’ll skirmish round Wall Street, and sorter 
lay low.” I was about to give him a few words of 
warning, but I remembered his watch, and desisted. 
We shook hands and parted. 

A few days after I met him on Broadway. He 
was attired in another new suit, but I think I saw 
h slight improvement in his general appearance. 


The Man from Solano . 


20o 


Only five distinct colors were visible in his attire. 
But this, I had reason to believe afterwards, was 
accidental. 

I asked him if he had been to the ball. He said 
he had. “ That gal, and a mighty peart gal she 
was too, was there, but she sorter fought shy of 
me. I got this new suit to go in, but those wait- 
ers sorter run me into a private box, and I did n’t 
get much chance to continner our talk about them 
checks. But that young feller, Dashboard, was 
mighty perlite. He brought lots of fellers and 
young women round to the box to see me, and he 
made up a party that night to take me round Wall 
Street and in them Stock Boards. And the next 
day he called for me and took me, and I invested 
about five hundred dollars in them stocks — may 
be more. You see, we sorter swopped stocks. 
You know I had ten shares in the Peacock Copper 
Mine, that you was once secretary of.” 

“ But those shares are not worth a cent. The 
whole thing exploded ten years ago.” 

“ That ’s so, may be ; you say so. But then I 
did n’t know anything more about Communipaw 
Central, or the Naphtha Gaslight Company, and so 
I thought it was a square game. Only I realized on 
the stocks I bought, an 1 I kem up outer Wall Street 
about four hundred dollars better. You see it was 
a sorter risk, after all, for them Peacock stocks 
might come up ! M 


206 


Drift from Two Shores. 


I looked into his face : it was immeasurably 
serene and commonplace. I began to be a little 
afraid of the man, or, rather, of my want of judg- 
ment of the man ; and after a few words we shook 
hands and parted. 

It was some months before I again saw the Man 
from Solano. When I did, I found that he had act- 
ually become a member of the Stock Board, and 
had a little office on Broad Street, where he trans- 
acted a fair business. My remembrance going back 
to the first night I met him, I inquired if he had 
renewed his acquaintance with Miss X. “ I heerd 
that she was in Newport this summer, and I ran 
down there fur a week.” 

“And you talked with her about the baggage- 
checks ? ” 

“ No,” he said, seriously ; “ she gave me a com- 
mission to buy some stocks for her. You see, I 
guess them fash’nable fellers sorter got to runnin ’ 
her about me, and so she put our acquaintance on a 
square business footing. I tell you, she ’s a right 
peart gal. Did ye hear of the accident that hap- 
pened to her ? ” 

I had not. 

“Well, you see, she was out yachting, and I 
managed through one of those fellers to get an 
invite, too. The whole thing was got up by a man 
that they say is going to marry her. Well, one 


207 


The Man from Solano. 

afternoon the boom swings round in a little squal 
and knocks her overboard. There was an awfu 
excitement, — you’ve heard about it, may be ? ” 

“ No ! ” But I saw it all with a romancer’s in 
stinct in a flash of poetry ! This poor fellow, de- 
barred through uncouthness from expressing hia 
affection for her, had at last found his fitting op 
portunity. He had — 

“ Thar was an awful row,” he went on. “ I ran 
out on the taffrail, and there a dozen yards away 
was that purty creature, that peart gal, and — ■ 
I” — 

“ You jumped for her,” I said, hastily. 

“ No ! ” he said gravely. “ I let the other man 
do the jumping. I sorter looked on.” 

I stared at him in astonishment. 

“ No,” he went on, seriously. “ He was the 
man who jumped — that was just then his ‘ put’ — 
his line of business. You see, if I had waltzed over 
the side of that ship, and cavoorted in, and flum* 
muxed round and finally flopped to the bottom, 
that other man would have jumped nateral-like and 
iaved her ; and ez he was going to marry her any 
way, I don’t exactly see where I’d hev been rep- 
resented in the transaction. But don’t you see, ef, 
after he ’d jumped and had n’t got her, he ’d gone 
down himself, I’d hev had the next best chance, 
and the advantage of heving him outer the way 


208 


Drift from Two Shores. 


You see, you don ’t understand me — I don't think 
you did in Californy.” 

“ Then he did save her ? ” 

“ Of course. Don’t you see she was all right 
If he’d missed her, I’d have chipped in. Thar 
war n’t no sense in my doing his duty onless he 
failed.” 

Somehow the story got out. \ The Man from 
Solano as a butt became more popular than ever, 
and of course received invitations to burlesque re- 
ceptions, and naturally met a great many people 
whom otherwise he would not have seen. It was 
observed also that his seven hundred dollars were 
steadily growing, and that he seemed to be getting 
on in his business. Certain California stocks which 
I had seen quietly interred in the old days in the 
tombs of their fathers were magically revived ; and 
I remember, as one who has seen a ghost, to have 
been shocked as I looked over the quotations one 
morning to have seen the ghostly face of the “ Dead 
Beat Beach Mining Co.,” rouged and plastered, 
looking out from the columns of the morning paper. 
At last a few people began to respect, or suspect, 
the Man from Solano. At last, suspicion culmi- 
nated with this incident : — 

He had long expressed a wish to belong to a cer 
tain “ fash’n’ble ” club, and with a view of burlesque 
he was invited to visit the club, where a series o? 


The Man from Solano . 209 

ridiculous entertainments were given him, winding 
up with a card party. As I passed the steps of the 
club-house early next morning, I overheard two or 
three members talking excitedly, — 

“ He cleaned everybody out.” “ Why, he must 
have raked in nigh on $40,000.” 

“ Who ? ” I asked. 

“ The Man from Solano.” 

As I turned away, one of the gentlemen, a vic- 
tim, noted for his sporting propensities, followed 
me, and laying his hand on my shoulder, asked : — 

“ Tell me fairly now. What business did your 
friend follow in California ? ” 

“ He was a shepherd.” 

“ A what ? ” 

“ A shepherd. Tended his flocks on the honey- 
scented hills of Solano.” 

“ Well, all I can say is, d — n your California 
pastorals ! ” 

U 


fHE OFFICE SEEKER. 


E asked me if I had ever seen the “ Remua 
Sentinel.” 

I replied that I had not, and would have 
added tbut I did not even know where Remus was, 
when he continued by saying it was strange the 
hotel proprietor did not keep the “ Sentinel ” on his 
files, and that he, himself, should write to the editor 
about it. He would not have spoken about it, but 
he, himself, had been an humble member of the 
profession to which I belonged, and had often writ- 
ten for its columns. Some friends of his — partial, 
no doubt — had said that his style somewhat re- 
sembled Junius’s ; but of course, you know — • 
well, what he could say was that in the last cam- 
paign his articles were widely sought for. He did 
not know but he had a copy of one. Here his hand 
dived into the breast-pocket of his coat, with a cer 
tain deftness that indicated long habit, and aftei 
depositing on his lap a bundle of well-worn docu- 
ments, every one of which was glaringly suggestive 
of certificates and signatures, he concluded he had 
left it in his trunk. 



211 


The Office Seeker. 

a breathed more freely. We were sitting in the 
I'ji-unda of a famous Washington hotel, and only 
a few moments before had the speaker, an utter 
itranger to me, moved his chair beside mine and 
opened a conversation. I noticed that he had that 
timid, lonely, helpless air which invests the bucolic 
traveler who, for the first time, finds himself among 
strangers, and his identity lost, in a world so much 
larger, so much colder, so much more indifferent to 
him than he ever imagined. Indeed, I think that 
what we often attribute to the impertinent familiar- 
ity of countrymen and rustic travelers on railways 
or in cities is largely due to their awful loneliness 
and nostalgia. I remember to have once met in 
a smoking-car on a Kansas railway one of these 
lonely ones, who, after plying me with a thousand 
useless questions, finally elicited the fact that I knew 
slightly a man who had once dwelt in his native 
town in Illinois. During the rest of our journey 
I he conversation turned chiefly upon this fellow- 
townsman, whom it afterwards appeared that my 
Illinois friend knew no better than I did. But 
he had established a link between himself and his 
far-off home through me, and was happy. 

While this was passing through my mind I took 
» fair look at him. He was a spare young fellow, 
Dot more than thirty, with sandy hair and eye 
^rows, and eyelashes so white as to be almost im 


212 


Drift from Two Shores. 


perceptible. He was dressed in black, somewhat 
to the “ rearward o’ the fashion,” and I had an odd 
idea that it had been his wedding suit, and it after- 
wards appeared I was right. His manner had the 
precision and much of the dogmatism of the coun- 
try schoolmaster, accustomed to wrestle with the 
feeblest intellects. From his history, which he 
presently gave me, it appeared I was right here 
also. 

He was born and bred in a Western State, and, 
as schoolmaster of Remus and Clerk of Supervis- 
ors, had married one of his scholars, the daughter 
of a clergyman, and a man of some little property. 
He had attracted some attention by his powers of 
declamation, and was one of the principal members 
of the Remus Debating Society. The various ques- 
tions then agitating Remus, — “ Is the doctrine of 
immortality consistent with an agricultural life ? ” 
and, “ Are round dances morally wrong ? ” — af- 
forded him an opportunity of bringing himself prom- 
inently before the country people. Perhaps I might 
have seen an extract copied from the “ Remus Sen- 
tinel ” in the “ Christian Recorder ” of May 7, 
1875? No? He would get it for me. He had 
taken an active part in the last campaign. He did 
not like to say it, but it had been universally a» 
knowledged that he had elected Gashwiler. 

Who? 


213 


The Office Seeker. 

Gen. Pratt C. Gashwiler, member of Congress 
from our deestrict. 

Oh! 

A powerful man, sir — a very powerful man ; 
a man whose influence will presently be felt here, 
sir — here ! Well, he had come on with Gashwiler, 
and — well, he did not know why — Gashwiler did 
not know why he should not, you know (a feeble, 
half-apologetic laugh here), receive that reward, 
you know, for these services which, etc., etc. 

I asked him if he had any particular or definite 
office in view. 

Well, no. He had left that to Gashwiler. Gash- 
wiler had said — he remembered his very words: 
“ Leave it all to me ; I ’ll look through the differ- 
ent departments, and see what can be done for a 
man of your talents.” 

And — 

He ’s looking. I ’m expecting him back here 
every minute. He ’s gone over to the Department 
of Tape, to see what can be done there. Ah ! here 
he comes. 

A large man approached us. He was very heavy, 
very unwieldy, very unctuous and oppressive. He 
affected the “ honest farmer,” but so badly that the 
poorest husbandman would have resented it. There 
was a suggestion of a cheap lawyer about him that 
would have justified any self-respecting judge in 


214 


Drift from Two Shores . 


throwing him over the bar at once. There was a 
military suspicion about him that would have enti- 
tled him to a court-martial on the spot. There 
was an introduction, from which I learned that my 
office-seeking friend’s name was Expectant Dobbs. 
And then Gashwiler addressed me : — 

“ Our young friend here is waiting, waiting. 
Waiting, I may say, on the affairs of State. Youth ” 
continued the Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, addressing an 
imaginary constituency, “ is nothing but a season of 
waiting — of preparation — ha, ha ! ” 

As he laid his hand in a fatherly manner — a 
fatherly manner that was as much of a sham as 
anything else about him — I don’t know whether 
I was more incensed at him or his victim, who re- 
ceived it with evident pride and satisfaction. Nev- 
ertheless he ventured to falter out : — 

“ Has anything been done yet ? ” 

“ Well, no ; I can’t say that anything — that is, 
that anything has been completed; but I may say 
we are in excellent position for an advance — ha, 
ha! But we must wait, my young friend, wait. 
What is it the Latin philosopher says ? 4 Let ns by 
all means hasten slowly ’ — ha, ha ! ” and he turned 
to me as if saying confidentially, “ Observe the im 
patience of these boys ! ” “I met, a moment ago 
my old friend and boyhood’s companion, Jim Mc- 
Glasher, chief of the Bureau for the Dissemination 


The Office Seeker. 


215 


of Useless Information, and,” lowering his voice to 
a mysterious but audible whisper, “ I shall see him 
again to-morrow.” 

The “ All aboard ! ” of the railway omnibus at 
this moment tore me from the presence of this 
gifted legislator and his protege; but as we drove 
away I saw through the open window the powerful 
mind of Gashwiler operating, so to speak, upon the 
susceptibilities of Mr. Dobbs. 

I did not meet him again for a week. The morn- 
ing of my return I saw the two conversing together 
in the hall, but with the palpable distinction be- 
tween th s and their former interviews, that the 
gifted Gashwiler seemed to be anxious to get away 
from his friend. I heard him say something about 
“ committees ” and “ to-morrow,” and when Dobbs 
turned his freckled face toward me I saw that he 
had got at last some expression into it — disap- 
pointment. 

I asked him pleasantly how he was getting on. 

He had not lost his pride yet. He was doing well, 
although such was the value set upon his friend 
Gashwiler’s abilities by his brother members that 
he was almost always occupied with committee 
Business. I noticed that his clothes were not in as 
good case as before, and he told me that he had left 
the hotel, and taken lodgings in a by-street, where 
t was less expensive. Temporarily, of course. 


216 Drift from Two Shores. 

A few days after this I had business in one of 
the great departments. From the various signs 
over the doors of its various offices and bureaus it 
always oddly reminded me of Stewart’s or Arnold 
and Constable’s. You could get pensions, patents, 
and plants. You could get land and the seeds to 
put in it, and the Indians to prowl round it, and 
what not. There was a perpetual clanging of of- 
fice desk bells, and a running hither and thither of 
messengers strongly suggestive of “ Cash 47.” 

As my business was with the manager of this 
Great National Fancy Shop, I managed to push by 
the sad-eyed, eager-faced crowd of men and women 
in the anteroom, and entered the secretary’s room, 
conscious of having left behind me a great deal of 
envy and uncharitableness of spirit. As I opened 
the door I heard a monotonous flow of Western 
speech which i thought I recognized. There was 
no mistaking it. It was the voice of the Gash 
wiler. 

“ The appointment of this man, Mr. Secretary, 
would be most acceptable to the people in my dee- 
strict. His family are wealthy and influential, and 
it’s just as well in the fall elections to have the 
supervisors and county judge pledged to support 
the administration. Our delegates to the State 
Central Committee are to a man ” — but here, 
perceiving from the wandering eye of Mr. Secre* 


217 


The Office Seeker. 

lary that there was another man in the 1 oom, he 
whispered the rest with a familiarity that must have 
required all the politician in the official’s breast to 
keep from resenting. 

“You have some papers, I suppose?” asked the 
secretary, wearily. 

Gashwiler was provided with a pocketful, and 
produced them. The secretary threw them on 
the table among the other papers, where they 
seemed instantly to lose their identity, and looked 
as if they were ready to recommend anybody but 
the person they belonged to. Indeed, in one cor- 
ner the entire Massachusetts delegation, with the 
Supreme Bench at their head, appeared to be ear- 
nestly advocating the manuring of Iowa waste lands ; 
and to the inexperienced eye, a noted female re- 
former had apparently appended her signature to a 
request for a pension for wounds received in battle. 

“ By the way,” said the secretary, “ I think I 
have a letter here from somebody in your district 
asking an appointment, and referring to you ? Do 
you withdraw it ? ” 

“If anybody has been presuming to speculate 
upon my patronage,” said the Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, 
with rising rage. 

“ I Ve got the letter somewhere here,” said the 
secretary, looking dazedly at his table. He made 

feeble movement among the papers, and then 


218 


Drift from Two Shores. 


Bank back hopelessly in his chair, and gazed out of 
the window as if he thought and rather hoped it 
might have flown away. “ It was from a Mr. 
Globbs, or Gobbs, or Dobbs, of Remus,” he said 
finally, after a superhuman effort of memory. 

“ Oh, that ’s nothing — a foolish fellow who has 
been boring me for the last month.” 

“ Then I am to understand that this application 
is withdrawn ?'” 

“ As far as my patronage is concerned, certainly. 
In fact, such an appointment would not express the 
sentiments — indeed, I may say, would be calcu- 
lated to raise active opposition in the deestrict.” 

The secretary uttered a sigh of relief, and the 
gifted Gashwiler passed out. I tried to get a good 
look at the honorable scamp’s eye, but he evi- 
dently did not recognize me. 

It was a question in my mind whether I ought 
not to expose the treachery of Dobbs’s friend, but 
the next time I met Dobbs he was in such good 
spirits that I forebore. It appeared that his wife 
had written to him that she had discovered a second 
cousin in the person of the Assistant Superintend- 
ent of the Envelope Flap Moistening Bureau of 
the Department of Tape, and had asked his assist- 
ance ; and Dobbs had seen him, and he had prom 
»sed it. “You see,” said Dobbs, “ in the perform 
ince of his duties he is often very near the person 


219 


The Office Seeker. 

»f the secretary, frequently in the next room, and 
he is a powerful man, sir — a powerful man to 
know, sir — a very powerful man.” 

How long this continued I do not remember. 
Long enough, however, for Dobbs to become quite 
seedy, for the giving up of wrist cuffs, for the 
neglect of shoes and beard, and for great hollows 
to form round his eyes, and a slight flush on his 
cheek-bones. I remember meeting him in all the 
departments, writing letters or waiting patiently in 
anterooms from morning till night. He had lost 
all his old dogmatism, but not his pride. “ I might 
as well be here as anywhere, while I ’m waiting,” 
he said, “ and then I ’m getting some knowledge 
of the details of official life.” 

In the face of this mystery I was surprised at 
finding a note from him one day, inviting me to 
dine with him at a certain famous restaurant. I 
had scarce got over my amazement, when the 
writer himself overtook me at my hotel. For a 
moment I scarcely recognized him. A new suit 
of fashionably-cut clothes had changed him, with- 
out, however, entirely concealing his rustic angu- 
larity of figure and outline. He even affected a 
fashionable dilettante air, but so mildly and so 
innocently that it was not offensive. 

“ You see,” he began, explanatory-wise, “I’ve 
*ust found out the way to do it. None of these big 


£20 


Drift from Two Shores. 


fellows, these cabinet officers, know me except as 
an applicant. Now, the way to do this thing is to 
meet ’em fust sociably ; wine ’em and dine ’em. 
Why, sir, ” — he dropped into the schoolmaster 
again here, — “ I had two cabinet ministers, two 
judges, and a general at my table last night.” 

u On your invitation ? ” 

“ Dear, no ! all I did was to pay for it. Tom 
Soufflet gave the dinner and invited the people. 
Everybody knows Tom. You see, a friend of 
mine put me up to it, and said that Soufflet had 
fixed up no end of appointments and jobs in that 
way. You see, when these gentlemen get sociable 
over their wine, he says carelessly, ‘ By the way, 
there ’s So-and-so — a good fellow — wants some- 
thing ; give it to him.’ And the first thing you 
know, or they know, he gets a promise from them. 
They get a dinner — and a good one — and he 
gets an appointment.” 

“ But where did you get the money ? ” 

“ Oh,” — he hesitated, — “I wrote home, and 
Fanny’s father raised fifteen hundred dollars some 
way, and sent it to me. I put it down to political 
expenses.” He laughed a weak, foolish laugh 
here, and added, “ As the old man don’t drink nor 
gmoke, he’d lift his eyebrows to know how the 
money goes. But I ’ll make it all right when the 
office comes — and she ’s coming, sure pop.’ 


The Office Seeker . 


221 


His slang fitted as poorly on him as his clothes, 
and his familiarity was worse than his former awk- 
ward shyness. But I could not help asking him 
what had been the result of this expenditure. 

“ Nothing just yet. But the Secretary of Tape 
and the man at the head of the Inferior Depart- 
ment, both spoke to me, and one of them said he 
thought he ’d heard my name before. He might,” 
he added, with a forced laugh, “ for I ’ve written 
him fifteen letters.” 

Three months passed. A heavy snow-storm 
stayed my chariot wheels on a Western railroad, 
ten miles from a nervous lecture committee and 
a waiting audience ; there was nothing to do but 
to make the attempt to reach them in a sleigh. 
But the way was long and the drifts deep, and 
when at last four miles out we reached a little 
village, the driver declared his cattle could hold 
out no longer, and we must stop there. Bribes 
and threats were equally of no avail. I had to ac- 
cept the fact. 

“ What place is this ? ” 

“ Remus.” 

“ Remus, Remus,” where had I heard that name 
before ? But while I was reflecting he drove up 
before the door of the tavern. It was a dismal, 
lleep-forbidding place, and only nine o’clock, and 
here was the long winter’s night before me. Fail' 


222 


Drift from Two Shores. 


ing to get the landlord to give me a team to go 
further, I resigned myself to my fate and a cigar, 
behind the red-hot stove. In a few moments one 
of the loungers approached me, calling me by 
name, and in a rough but hearty fashion condoled 
with me for my mishap, advised me to stay at Re- 
mus all night, and added : “ The quarters ain’t the 
best in the world yer at this hotel. But thar ’s an 
old man yer — the preacher that was — that for 
twenty years hez taketife in such fellers as you and 
lodged ’em free gratis for nothing, and hez been 
proud to do it. The old man used to be rich ; he 
ain’t so now ; sold his big house on the cross 
roads, and lives in a little cottage with his darter 
right over yan. But ye could n’t do him a better 
turn than to go over thar and stay, and if he thought 
I ’d let ye go out o’ Remus without axing ye, he ’d 
give me h — 11. Stop, I ’ll go with ye.” 

I might at least call on the old man, and I ac- 
companied my guide through the still falling snow 
until we reached a little cottage. The door opened 
to my guide’s knock, and with the brief and discom- 
posing introduction, “ Yer, ole man, I ’ve brought 
you one o’ them snow-bound lecturers,” he left me 
on the threshold, as my host, a kindly-faced, white- 
haired man of seventy, came forward to greet me. 

His frankness and simple courtesy overcame the 
embarrassment left by my guide’s introduction, and 


223 


The Office Seeker . 

1 followed him passively as he entered the neat, but 
plainly-furnished sitting-room. At the same mo- 
ment a pretty, but faded young woman arose from 
the sofa and was introduced to me as his daughter. 
“ Fanny and I live here quite alone, and if you 
knew how good it was to see somebody from the 
great outside world now and then, you would not 
apologize for what you call your intrusion.” 

During this speech I was vaguely trying to 
recall where and when and under what circum 
stances I had ever before seen the village, the 
house, the old man or his daughter. Was it in 
a dream, or in one of those dim reveries of some 
previous existence to which the spirit of mankind 
is subject ? I looked at them again. In the care- 
worn lines around the once pretty girlish mouth of 
the young woman, in the furrowed seams over the 
forehead of the old man, in the ticking of the old- 
fashioned clock on the shelf, in the faint whisper of 
the falling snow outside, I read the legend, “ Pa- 
tience, patience ; Wait and Hope.” 

The old man filled a pipe, and offering me one, 
continued, “Although I seldom drink myself, it 
was my custom to always keep some nourishing 
liquor in my house for passing guests, but to-night 
I find myself without any.” I hastened to offer 
him my flask, which, after a moment’s coyness, he 
accepted, and presently under its benign influence 


224 


Drift from Two Shores. 


at least ten years dropped from his shoulders, and 
he sat up in his chair erect and loquacious. 

“And how are affairs at the National Capital, 
Bir ? ” he began. 

Now, if there was any subject of which I was 
profoundly ignorant, it was this. But the old man 
was evidently bent on having a good political talk. 
So I said vaguely, yet with a certain sense of secur- 
ity, that I guessed there was n’t much being done. 

“I see,” said the old man, “in the matters of 
resumption ; of the sovereign rights of States and 
federal interference, you would imply that a cer- 
tain conservative tentative policy is to be promul- 
gated until after the electoral committee have given 
their verdict.” I looked for help towards the lady, 
and observed feebly that he had very clearly ex- 
pressed my views. 

The old man, observing my look, said: “Al- 
though my daughter’s husband holds a federal 
position in Washington, the pressure of his busi- 
ness is so great that he has little time to give us 
mere gossip — I beg your pardon, did you speak ? ” 

I had unconsciously uttered an exclamation. 
This, then, was Remus — the home of Expectant 
Dobbs — and these his wife and father ; and the 
Washington banquet-table, ah me! had sparkled 
with the yearning heart’s blood of this poor wife, 
and had been upheld by this tottering Caryatid of 
a father. 


225 


The Office SeeJcer. 

“ Do you know what position he has ? ” 

The old man did not know positively, but thought 
it was some general supervising position. He had 
been assured by Mr. Gashwiler that it was a first- 
class clerkship ; yes, a first class. 

I did not tell him that in this, as in many other 
official regulations in Washington, they reckoned 
backward, but said : — 

“ I suppose that your M. C., Mr. — Mr. Gash- 
wiler ” — 

u Don’t mention his name,” said the little wom- 
an, rising to her feet hastily ; “ he never brought 
Expectant anything but disappointment and sor- 
row. I hate, I despise the man.” 

“ Dear Fanny,” expostulated the old man, gently, 
“ this is unchristian and unjust. Mr. Gashwiler is 
a powerful, a very powerful man ! His work is a 
great one ; his time is preoccupied with weightier 
matters. 

“ His time was not so preoccupied but he could 
make use of poor Expectant,” said this wounded 
dove, a little spitefully. 

Nevertheless it was some satisfaction to know 
that Dobbs had at last got a place, no matter how 
unimportant, or who had given it to him ; and 
when I went to bed that night in the room that 
had been evidently prepared for their conjugal 
chamber, I felt that Dobbs’s worst trials were over. 

15 


226 


Drift from Two Shores . 


The walls were hung with souvenirs of their ante- 
nuptial days. There was a portrait of Dobbs, 
£etat 25 ; there was a faded bouquet in a glass case, 
presented by Dobbs to Fanny on examination-day ; 
there was a framed resolution of thanks to Dobbs 
from the Remus Debating Society; there was a 
certificate of Dobbs’s election as President of the 
Remus Philomathean Society; there was his com- 
mission as Captain in the Remus Independent Con- 
tingent of Home Guards; there was a Freemason’s 
chart, in which Dobbs was addressed in epithets 
more fulsome and extravagant than any living 
monarch. And yet all these cheap glories of a 
narrow life and narrower brain were upheld and 
made sacred by the love of the devoted priestess 
who worshiped at this homely shrine, and kept the 
light burning through gloom and doubt and despair. 
The storm tore round the house, and shook its 
white fists in the windows. A dried wreath of 
laurel that Fanny had placed on Dobbs’s head after 
his celebrated centennial address at the school- 
house, July 4, 1876, swayed in the gusts, and sent 
a few of its dead leaves down on the floor, and I 
lay in Dobbs’s bed and wondered what a first-class 
clerkship was. 

I found out early the next summer. I was stroll- 
ing through the long corridors of a certain great 
department, when I came upon a man accurately 


The Office Seeker. 


227 


yoked across the shoulders, and supporting two 
huge pails of ice on either side, from which he was 
replenishing the pitchers in the various offices. As 
I passed I turned to look at him again. It was 
Dobbs ! 

He did not set down his burden ; it was against 
the rules, he said. But he gossiped cheerily, said 
he was beginning at the foot of the ladder, but ex- 
pected soon to climb up. That it was Civil Service 
Reform, and of course he would be promoted soon. 

“Had Gashwiler procured the appointment?” 

No. He believed it was me. 1 had told his 
story to Assistant-secretary Blank, who had, in 
turn related it to Bureau-director Dash — both 
good fellows — but this was all they could do. 
Yes, it was a foothold. But he must go now. 

Nevertheless, I followed him up and down, and, 
cheered up with a rose-colored picture of his wife 
and family, and my visit there, and promising to 
come and see him the next time I came to Wash- 
ington, I left him with his self-imposed yoke. 

With a new administration, Civil Service Re- 
form came in, crude and ill-digested, as all sudden 
and sweeping reforms must be ; cruel to the individ- 
ual, as all crude reforms will ever be ; and among 
the list of helpless men and women, incapacitated 
for other work by long service m the dull routine 
of federal office who were decapitated, the weak, 


228 


Drift from Two Shores. 


foolish, emaciated head of Expectant Dobbs went 
to the block. It afterward appeared that the 
gifted Gashwiler was responsible for the appoint- 
ment of twenty clerks, and that the letter of poor 
Dobbs, in which he dared to refer to the now power- 
less Gashwiler, had sealed his fate. The country 
made an example of Gashwiler and — Dobbs. 

From that moment he disappeared. I looked 
for him in vain in anterooms, lobbies, and hotel 
corridors, and finally came to the conclusion that 
he had gone home. 

How beautiful was that July Sabbath, when the 
morning train from Baltimore rolled into the 
Washington depot. How tenderly and chastely 
the morning sunlight lay on the east front of the 
Capitol until the whole building was hushed in a 
grand and awful repose. How difficult it was to 
think of a Gashwiler creeping in and out of those 
entiling columns, or crawling beneath that portico, 
without wondering that yon majestic figure came 
not down with flat of sword to smite the fat rotun- 
dity of the intruder. How difficult to think that 
parricidal hands have ever been lifted against the 
Great Mother, typified here in the graceful white 
chastity of her garments, in the noble tranquillity 
of her face, in the gathering up her white-robed 
children within her shadow. 

This led me to think of Dobbs, when, suddenly 


229 


The Office Seeker. 

n face flashed by my carriage window. I called to 
die driver to stop, and, looking again, saw that it 
Was a woman standing bewildered and irresolute 
on the street corner. As she turned her anxious 
face toward me I saw that it was Mrs. Dobbs. 

What was she doing here, and where was Expec- 
tant ? 

She began an incoherent apology, and then burst 
into explanatory tears. When I had got her in the 
carriage she said, between her sobs, that Expectant 
had not returned ; that she had received a letter 
from a friend here saying he was sick, — oh very, 
very sick, — and father could not come with her, so 
she came alone. She was so frightened, so lonely, 
so miserable. 

Had she his address ? 

Yes, just here! It was on the outskirts of 
Washington, near Georgetown. Then I would 
take her there, if I could, for she knew nobody. 

On our way I tried to cheer her up by pointing 
out some of the children of the Great Mother be- 
fore alluded to, but she only shut her eyes as we 
rolled down the long avenues, and murmured, 
“ Oh, these cruel, cruel distances ! ” 

At last we reached the locality, a negro quarter, 
yet clean and neat in appearance. I saw the poor 
girl shudder slightly as we stopped at the door of a 
ow, two-story frame house, from which the un- 


1130 Drift from Two Shores . 

wonted spectacle of a carriage brought a crowd of 
half-naked children and a comely, cleanly, kind- 
faced mulatto woman. 

Yes, this was the house. He was upstairs, 
rather poorly, but asleep, she thought. 

We went upstairs. In the first chamber, clean, 
though poorly furnished, lay Dobbs. On a pine 
table near his bed were letters and memorials to 
the various departments, and on the bed-quilt, un- 
finished, but just as the weary fingers had relaxed 
their grasp upon it, lay a letter to the Tape Depart- 
ment. 

As we entered the room he lifted himself on his 
elbow. “ Fanny ! ” he said, quickly, and a shade 
of disappointment crossed his face. “ I thought 
it was a message from the secretary,” he added, 
apologetically. 

The poor woman had suffered too much already 
to shrink from this last crushing blow. But she 
walked quietly to his side without a word or cry, 
knelt, placed her loving arms around him, and 1 
left them so together. 

When I called again in the evening he was bet 
ter ; so much better that, against the doctor’s or- 
ders, he had talked to her quite cheerfully and 
hopefully for an hour, until suddenly raising her 
bowed head in his two hands, he said, “ Do you 
know, dear, that in looking for help and influence 


231 


The Office Seeker. 

there was one, dear, I had forgotten ; one who is 
very potent with kings and councilors, and 1 think, 
love, I shall ask Him to interest Himself in my 
behalf. It is not too late yet, darling, and I shall 
seek Him to-morrow.” 

And before the morrow came he had sought 
and found Him, and I doubt not got a good place. 


A SLEEPING-CAR EXPERIENCE. 


T was in a Pullman sleeping-car on a 
Western road. After that first plunge 
into unconsciousness which the weary 
traveler takes on getting into his berth, I awakened 
to the dreadful revelation that I had been asleep 
only two hours. The greater part of a long winter 
night was before me to face with staring eyes. 

Finding it impossible to sleep, I lay there won- 
dering a number of things : why, for instance, the 
Pullman sleeping-car blankets were unlike other 
blankets ; why they were like squares cut out of 
cold buckwheat cakes, and why they clung to you 
when you turned over, and lay heavy on you with- 
out warmth ; why the curtains before you could not 
have been made opaque, without being so thick and 
suffocating ; why it would not be as well to sit up 
all night half asleep in an ordinary passenger-car as 
to lie awake all night in a Pullman. But the snor- 
ing of my fellow-passengers answered this question 
in the negative. 

With the recollection of last night’s dinner weigh- 
ing on me as heavily and coldly as the blankets, 1 



A Sleeping-car Experience. 233 

began wondering why, over the whole extent of the 
continent, there was no local dish ; why the bill of 
fare at restaurant and hotel was invariably only a 
weak reflex of the metropolitan hostelries ; why the 
entrees were always the same, only more or less badly 
cooked; why the traveling American always was 
supposed to demand turkey and cold cranberry 
sauce ; why the pretty waiter-girl apparently shuf- 
fled your plates behind your back, and then dealt 
them over your shoulder in a semicircle, as if they 
were a hand at cards, and not always a good one ? 
Why, having done this, she instantly retired to the 
nearest wall, and gazed at you scornfully, as one 
who would say, “ Fair sir, though lowly, I am 
proud ; if thou dost imagine that I would permit 
undue familiarity of speech, beware ! ” And then 
I began to think of and dread the coming break- 
fast ; to wonder why the ham was always cut half 
an inch thick, and why the fried egg always re- 
sembled a glass eye that visibly winked at you with 
diabolical dyspeptic suggestions ; to wonder if the 
buckwheat cakes, the eating of which requires a 
certain degree of artistic preparation and delibera- 
tion, would be brought in as usual one minute be- 
fore the train started. And then I had a vivid rec- 
ollection of a fellow-passenger who, at a certain 
breakfast station in Illinois, frantically enwrapped 
his portion of this national pastry in his red ban- 


234 Drift from Two Shores. 

dana handkerchief, took it into the smoking-car, 
and quietly devoured it en route. 

Lying broad awake, I could not help making 
some observations which I think are not noticed 
by the day traveler. First, that the speed of a 
train is not equal or continuous. That at certain 
times the engine apparently starts up, and says to 
the baggage train behind it, “ Come, come, this 
won’t do ! Why, it ’s nearly half-past two ; how 
in h — 11 shall we get through ? Don’t you talk 
to me. Pooh, pooh ! ” delivered in that rhythmical 
fashion which all meditation assumes on a railway 
train, j Exempli gratia: One night, having raised 
my window-curtain to look over a moonlit snowy 
landscape, as I pulled it down the lines of a popular 
comic song flashed across me. Fatal error ! The 
train instantly took it up, and during the rest of the 
night I was haunted by this awful refrain : “ Pull 
down the bel-lind, pull down the bel-lind ; some- 
body ’s klink klink, O don’t be shoo-shoo ! ” Natu- 
rally this differs on the different railways. On the 
New York Central, where the road-bed is quite per- 
fect and the steel rails continuous, I have heard this 
irreverent train give the words of a certain popular 
revival hymn after this fashion : “ Hold the fort, for 
I am Sankey ; Moody slingers still. Wave the 
swish swash back from klinky, klinky klanky kill.” 
On the New York and New Haven, where there 


A Sleeping * car Experience. 235 

are many switches, and the engine whistles at every 
cross road, I have often heard, “ Tommy make room 
for your whoopy! that’s a little clang; bumpity, 
bumpity, boopy, clikitty, clikitty, clang.” Poetry, I 
fear, fared little better. One starlit night, coming 
from Quebec, as we slipped by a virgin forest, the 
opening lines of Evangeline flashed upon me. But 
all I could make of them was this : “ This is the 
forest primeval-eval ; the groves of the pines and 
the hemlocks - locks-locks - locks - loooock ! ” The 
train was only “ slowing ” or “ braking ” up at a 
station. Hence the jar in the metre. 

I had noticed a peculiar Aeolian harp-like cry 
that ran through the whole train as we settled to 
rest at last after a long run — an almost sigh of 
infinite relief, a musical sigh that began in C and 
ran gradually up to F natural, which I think most 
observant travelers have noticed day and night. 
No railway official has ever given me a satisfactory 
explanation of it. As the car, in a rapid run, is 
always slightly projected forward of its trucks, a 
practical friend once suggested to me that it was 
the gradual settling back of the car body to a state 
of inertia, which, of course, every poetical traveler 
would reject. Four o’clock — the sound of boot- 
blacking by the porter faintly apparent from the 
toilet-room. Why no/' talk to him ? But, fortu- 
nately, I remembered that any attempt at extended 


236 


Drift from Two Shores. 


conversation with conductor or porter was always 
resented by them as implied disloyalty to the com- 
pany they represented. I recalled that once I had 
endeavored to impress upon a conductor the ab- 
solute folly of a midnight inspection of tickets, and 
had been treated by him as an escaped lunatic. 
No, there was no relief from this suffocating and 
insupportable loneliness to be gained then. I 
raised the window-blind and looked out. We were 
passing a farm-house. A light, evidently the lan- 
tern of a farm-hand, was swung beside a barn. 
Yes, the faintest tinge of rose in the far horizon. 
Morning, surely, at last. 

We, had stopped at a station. Two men had 
got into the car, and had taken seats in the one 
vacant section, yawning occasionally and convers- 
ing in a languid, perfunctory sort of way. They 
sat opposite each other, occasionally looking out of 
the window, but always giving the strong impres- 
sion that they were tired of each other’s company. 
As I looked out of my curtains at them, the One 
Man said, with a feebly concealed yawn : — 

“ Yes, well, I reckon he was at one time as pop- 
lar an ondertaker ez I knew.” 

The Other Man (inventing a question rather than 
giving an answer, out of some languid, social im 
pulse) : “ But was he — this yer ondertaker — s 
Christian — hed he jined the church ? ” 


237 


A Sleeping-car Experience . 

The One Man (reflectively): “Well, I don’t 
know ez you might call him a purfessin’ Christian ; 
but he hed — yes, he hed conviction. I think Dr. 
Wylie hed him under conviction. Et least that 
was the way I got it from him” 

A long, dreary pause. The Other Man (feeling 
it was incumbent upon him to say something ) : 
“ But why was he poplar ez an ondertaker ? ” 

The One Man (lazily) : “ Well he was kinder 
poplar with widders and widderers — sorter soothen 
’em a kinder, keerless way ; slung ’em suthin’ here 
and there, sometimes outer the Book, sometimes 
outer hisself, ez a man of experience as hed hed 
sorror. Hed, they say {very cautiously), lost three 
wives hisself, and five children by this yer new 
disease — dipthery — out in Wisconsin. I don’t 
know the facts, but that’s what ’s got round.” 

The Other Man : “ But how did he lose his 

poplarity ? ” 

The One Man : “ Well, that ’s the question. 

You see he interduced some things into ondertak- 
ing that waz new. He hed, for instance, a way, as 
he called it, of manniperlating the features of the 
deceased.” 

The Other Man (quietly) : “ How manniperlat- 

mg ? ” 

The One Man (struck with a bright and ag- 
gressive thought) : “ Look yer, did ye ever notiss 
how, generally speakin,’ onhandsome a corpse is ? ” 


238 Drift from Two Shores. 

The Other Man had noticed this fact. 

The One Man (returning to his fact) : “ Why 
there was Mary Peebles, ez was daughter of my 
wife’s bosom friend — a mighty pooty girl and a 
professing Christian — died of scarlet fever. Well, 
that gal — I was one of the mourners, being my 
wife’s friend — well, that gal, though I hed n’t, per- 
haps, oughter say — lying in that casket, fetched all 
the way from some A 1 establishment in Chicago, 
filled with flowers and furbelows — did n’t really 
seem to be of much account. Well, although my 
wife’s friend, and me a mourner — well, now, I was 

— disappointed and discouraged. ” 

The Other Man (in palpably affected sympathy): 
“ Sho ! now ! ” 

“Yes, sir! Well, you see, this yer ondertaker, 
this Wilkins, hed a way of correctin’ all thet. 
And just by manniperlation. He worked over the 
face of the deceased ontil he perduced what the 
survivin’ relatives called a look of resignation, — 
you know, a sort of smile, like. When he wanted 
to put in any extrys, he perduced what he called 

— hevin’ reglar charges for this kind of work — a 
Christian’s hope.” 

The Other Man : “ I want to know.” 

“ Yes. Well, I admit, at times it was a little 
Btartiin’. And I ’ve allers said (a little confiden- 
tially) that 1 had my doubts of its being Scriptoora 


A Sleeping* car Experience. 239 

or sacred, we being, ez you know, worms of the 
yearth ; and I relieved my mind to our pastor, but 
he did n’t feel like interferin’, ez long ez it was con- 
fined to church membership. But the other day, 
when Cy Dunham died — you disremember Cy 
Dunham ? ” 

A long interval of silence. The Other Man was 
looking out of the window, and had apparently for- 
gotten his companion completely. But as I stretched 
my head out of the curtain I saw four other heads 
as eagerly reached out from other berths to hear 
the conclusion of the story. One head, a female 
one, instantly disappeared on my looking around, 
but a certain tremulousness of her window-curtain 
showed an unabated interest. The only two utterly 
disinterested men were the One Man and the Other 
Man. 

The Other Man (detaching himself languidly 
from the window) : “ Cy Dunham ? ” 

“ Yes ; Cy never hed hed either convictions or 
purfessions. Uster get drunk and go round with 
permiscous women. Sorter like the prodigal son, 
only a little more so, ez fur ez I kin jud^ from 
the facks ez stated to me. Well, Cy one day 
petered out down at Little Rock, and was sent up 
yer for interment. The fammerly, being proud- 
like, of course didn’t spare no money on that 
funeral, and it waz — now between you and me — 


240 


Drift from Two Shores. 


about ez shapely and first-class and prime-mess 
affair ez I ever saw. Wilkins hed put in his ex- 
trys. He hed put onto that prodigal’s face the A 1 
touch, — hed him fixed up with a ‘ Christian’s hope.’ 
Well, it waz about the turning-point, for thar waz 
some of the members and the pastor hisself thought 
that the line oughter to be drawn somewhere, and 
thar waz some talk at Deacon Tibbet’s about a reg’- 
lar conference meetin’ regardin’ it. But it waz n’t 
thet which made him onpoplar.” 

Another silence ; no expression nor reflection 
from the face of the Other Man of the least desire 
to know what ultimately settled the unpopularity 
of the undertaker. But from the curtains of the 
various berths several eager and one or two even 
wrathful, faces, anxious for the result. 

The Other Man (lazily recurring to the fading 
topic) : “ Well, what made him onpoplar?” 

The One Man (quietly) : “ Extrys, I think — 
that is, I suppose, not knowin’ ” (cautiously) “ all 
the facts. When Mrs. Widdecombe lost her hus- 
band, ’bout two months ago, though she’d been 
through the valley of the shadder of death twice — 
this bein’ her third marriage, hevin’ been John 
Barker’s widder ” — 

The Other Man (with an intense expression of 
interest) : “ No, you ’re foolin’ me ! ” 

The One Man (solemnly) : “ Ef I was to ap 


A Sleeping-car Experience . 241 

pear before my Maker to-morrow, yes ! she was the 
widder of Barker.” 

The Other Man : 44 Well, I swow.” 

The One Man : “ Well, this Widder Widde- 
eombe, she put up a big funeral for the deceased. 
She hed Wilkins, and thet ondertaker just laid his- 
self out. Just spread hisself. Onfort’natly, — per- 
haps fort’natly in the ways of Providence, — one 
of Widdecombe’s old friends, a doctor up thar in 
Chicago, comes down to the funeral. He goes up 
with the friends to look at the deceased, smilin’ 
a peaceful sort o’ heavinly smile, and everybody 
sayin’ he ’s gone to meet his reward, and this yer 
friend turns round, short and sudden on the widder. 
settin’ in her pew, and kinder enjoyin’, as wimen 
will, all the compliments paid the corpse, and he 
says, says he : — 

44 4 What did you say your husband died of, 
marm ? ’ 

44 4 Consumption,’ she says, wiping her eyes, poor 
critter. 4 Consumption — gallopin’ consumption.’ 

44 4 Consumption be d — d,’ sez he, bein’ a pro- 
fane kind of Chicago doctor, and not bein’ ever 
under conviction. 4 Thet man died of strychnine. 
Look at thet face. Look at thet contortion of them 
fashal muscles. Thet ’s strychnine. Thet ’s risers 
Sardonikus ’ (thet ’s what he said ; he was always 
lorter profane). 

16 


242 


Drift from Two Shores. 


44 4 Why, doctor/ says the widder, 4 thet — thet is 
his last smile. It ’s a Christian’s resignation.’ 

“ 4 Thet be blowed ; don’t tell me,’ sez he. 4 Hell 
is full of thet kind of resignation. It ’s pizon. And 
I ’ll ’ — Why, dern my skin, yes we are ; yes, it ’s 
Joliet. Wall, now, who ’d hev thought we ’d been 
nigh onto an hour.” 

Two or three anxious passengers from their 
berths : 44 Say ; look yer, stranger ! Old man ! 
What became of ” — 

But the One Man and the Other Man had van- 
ished. 


FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. 


NOTES BY AN EARLY RISER. 

HAVE always been an early riser. The 
popular legend that “Early to bed and 
early to rise,” invariably and rhythmic- 
ally resulted in healthfulness, opulence, and wis- 
dom, I beg here to solemnly protest against. As 
an “ unhealthy ” man, as an “ unweal thy ” man, and 
doubtless by virtue of this protest an “ unwise ” man, 
I am, I think, a glaring example of the untruth of 
the proposition. 

For instance, it is my misfortune, as an early 
riser, to live upon a certain fashionable avenue, 
where the practice of early rising is confined ex- 
clusively to domestics. Consequently, when I issue 
forth on this broad, beautiful thoroughfare at six 
A. M., I cannot help thinking that I am, to a cer- 
tain extent, desecrating its traditional customs. 

I have more than once detected the milkman 
winking at the maid with a diabolical suggestion 
that I was returning from a carouse, and Rounds- 
man 9999 has once or twice followed me a block or 
two with the evident impression that I was a burg- 
'ar returning from a successful evening out. Nev- 



244 


Drift from Two Shores. 


ertheless, these various indiscretions have brought 
me into contact with a kind of character and phe- 
nomena whose existence I might otherwise have 
doubted. 

First, let me speak of a large class of working- 
people whose presence is, I think, unknown to 
many of those gentlemen who are in the habit of 
legislating or writing about them. A majority of 
these early risers in the neighborhood of which 1 
may call my “ beat ” carry with them unmistakable 
evidences of the American type. I have seen so 
little of that foreign element that is popularly sup- 
posed to be the real working class of the great 
metropolis, that I have often been inclined to doubt 
statistics. The ground that my morning rambles 
cover extends from Twenty-third Street to Wash- 
ington Park, and laterally from Sixth Avenue to 
Broadway. The early rising artisans that I meet 
here, crossing three avenues, — the milkmen, the 
truck-drivers, the workman, even the occasional 
tramp, — wherever they may come from or gc to, 
or what their real habitat may be, — are invaluably 
Americans. I give it as an honest record, what- 
ever its significance of insignificance may be, that 
during the last year, between the hours of six and 
eight A. m., in and about the locality I have men* 
tioned, I have met with but two unmistakable for 
tigners, an Irishman and a German. Perhaps it 


Five o'Cloch in the Morning. 245 

may be necessary to add to this statement that the 
people I have met at those, early hours I have 
never seen at any other time in the same locality. 

As to their quality, the artisans were always 
cleanly dressed, intelligent, and respectful. I re- 
member, however, one morning, when the ice storm 
of the preceding night had made the sidewalks glis- 
tening, smiling and impassable, to have journeyed 
down the middle of Twelfth Street with a mechanic 
so sooty as to absolutely leave a legible track in 
the snowy pathway. He was the fireman attend- 
ing the engine in a noted manufactory, and in our 
brief conversation he told me many facts regarding 
his profession which I fear interested me more 
than the after-dinner speeches of some distinguished 
gentlemen I had heard the preceding night. I re- 
member that he spoke of his engine as “ she,” and 
related certain circumstances regarding her incon- 
sistency, her aberrations, her pettishnesses, that 
Beemed to justify the feminine gender. I have a 
grateful recollection of him as being one who intro- 
duced me to a restaurant where chicory, thinly dis- 
guised as coffee, was served with bread at five cents 
a cup, and that he honorably insisted on being the 
host, and paid his ten cents for our mutual en- 
tertainment with the grace of a Barmecide. I re- 
member, in a more genial season, — I think early 
nummer, — to have found upon the benches of Wash* 


246 


Drift from Two Shores. 


ington Park a gentleman who informed me that 
his profession was that of a “ pigeon catcher ; ” that 
he contracted with certain parties in this city to 
furnish these birds for what he called their “pigeon- 
shoots;” and that in fulfilling this contract he often 
was obliged to go as far west as Minnesota. The 
details he gave — his methods of entrapping the 
birds, his study of v their habits, his evident belief 
that the city pigeon, however well provided for by 
parties who fondly believed the bird to be their own, 
was really ferce naturce , and consequently “ game ” 
for the pigeon-catcher — were all so interesting that 
I listened to him with undisguised delight. When 
he had finished, however, he said, “ And now, sir, 
being a poor man, with a large family, and work 
bein’ rather slack this year, if ye could oblige me 
with the loan of a dollar and your address, until 
remittances what I ’m expecting come in from 
Chicago, you ’ll be doin’ me a great service,” etc., 
etc. He got the dollar, of course (his information 
was worth twice the money), but I imagine he lost 
my address. Yet it is only fair to say that some 
days after, relatiug his experience to a prominent 
sporting man, he corroborated all its details, and 
satisfied me that my pigeon-catching friend, although 
unfortunate, was not an impostor. 

And this leads me to speak of the birds. Of aL 
*arly risers, my most importunate, aggressive, and 


Five o'Cloch in the Morning. 247 

obtrusive companions are the English sparrows. 
Between six and seven a. m. they seem to possess 
the avenue, and resent my intrusion. I remember, 
one chilly morning, when I came upon a flurry of 
them, chattering, quarreling, skimming, and alight- 
ing just before me. I stopped at last, fearful of 
stepping on the nearest. To my great surprise, 
instead of flying away, he contested the ground inch 
by inch before my advancing foot, with his wings 
outspread and open bill outstretched, very much 
like that ridiculous burlesque of the American eagle 
which the common canary-bird assumes when teased. 
u Did you ever see ’em wash in the fountain in the 
square?” said Roundsman 9999, early one summer 
morning. I had not. “ I guess they ’re there yet. 
Come and see ’em,” he said, and complacently ac- 
companied me two blocks. I don’t know which 
was the finer sight, — the thirty or forty winged 
sprites, dashing in and out of the basin, each the 
very impersonation of a light-hearted, mischievous 
Puck, or this grave policeman, with badge and club 
and shield, looking on with delight. Perhaps my 
visible amusement, or the spectacle of a brother 
policeman just then going past with a couple of 
w drunk and disorderlies,” recalled his official re- 
sponsibilities and duties. “ They say them foreign 
sparrows drive all the other birds away,” he added, 
severely ; and then walked off with a certain re- 


248 


Drift from Two Shores. 


Berved manner, as if it were not impossible for him 
to be called upon some morning to take the entire 
feathered assembly into custody, and if so called 
npon he should do it. 

Next, I think, in procession among the early 
risers, and surely next in fresh and innocent ex- 
terior, were the work-women or shop-girls. I 
have seen this fine avenue on gala afternoons bright 
with the beauty and elegance of an opulent city, but 
I have seen no more beautiful faces than I have 
seen among these humbler sisters. As the mere 
habits of dress in America, except to a very acute 
critic, give no suggestion of the rank of the wearer, 
I can imagine an inexperienced foreigner utterly 
mystified and confounded by these girls, who per- 
haps work a sewing-machine or walk the long 
floors of a fashionable dry-goods shop. I remem- 
ber one face and figure, faultless and complete, — 
modestly, yet most becomingly dressed, — indeed, 
a figure that Compte-Calix might have taken for 
one of his exquisite studies, which, between seven 
and eight a. m. passed through Eleventh Street, be- 
tween Sixth Avenue and Broadway. So excep- 
tionally fine was her carriage, so chaste and vir- 
ginal her presence, and so refined and even spiritual 
tier features, that, as a literary man, I would have 
been justified in taking her for the heroine of a 
society novel. Indeed, I had already woven a little 


Five o'Cloch in the Morning . 249 

'omance about her, when one morning she over- 
look me, accompanied by another girl — pretty, 
but of a different type — with whom she was ear- 
nestly conversing. As the two passed me, there fell 
from her faultless lips the followiug astounding 
sentence : “ And I told him, if he did n’t like it 
he might lump it, and he traveled off on his left 
ear, you bet ! ” Heaven knows what indiscretion 
this speech saved me from ; but the reader will 
understand what a sting the pain of rejection might 
have added to it by the above formula. 

The “ morning-cocktail ” men come next in my 
experience of early rising. I used to take my early 
cup of coffee in the cafe of a certain fashionable res- 
taurant that had a bar attached. I could not help 
noticing that, unlike the usual social libations of my 
countrymen, the act of taking a morning cocktail 
was a solitary one. In the course of my experience 
I cannot recall the fact of two men taking an ante- 
breakfast cocktail together. On the contrary, I have 
observed the male animal rush savagely at the bar, 
demand his drink of the bar-keeper, swallow it, and 
hasten from the scene of his early debauchery, or 
else take it in a languid, perfunctory manner, which, 
I think, must have been insulting to the bar-keeper. 
I have observed two men, whom I had seen drink- 
ing amicably together the preceding night, standing 
gloomily at the opposite corners of the bar, evi- 


250 Drift from Two Shores. 

\ 

dently trying not to see each other and making the 
matter a confidential one with the bar-keeper. I 
have seen even a thin disguise of simplicity as- 
sumed. I remember an elderly gentleman, of most 
respectable exterior, who used to enter the cafe as 
if he had strayed there accidentally. After looking 
around carefully, and yet unostentatiously, he would 
walk to the bar, and, with an air of affected care- 
lessness, state that “ not feeling well this morning, 
he guessed he would take — well, he would leave 
it to the bar-keeper.” The bar-keeper invariably 
gave him a stiff* brandy cocktail. When the old 
gentleman had done this half a dozen times, I 
think I lost faith in him. I tried afterwards to 
glean from the bar-keeper some facts regarding 
those experiences, but I am proud to say that he 
was honorably reticent. Indeed, I think it may be 
said truthfully that there is no record of a bar- 
keeper who has been “ interviewed.” Clergymen 
and doctors have, but it is well for the weakness of 
humanity that the line should be drawn some- 
where. 

And this reminds me that one distressing phase 
of early rising is the incongruous and unpleasant 
contact of the preceding night. The social yester- 
day is not fairly over before nine a. m. to-day, and 
there is always a humorous, sometimes a pathetic 
apping over the edges. I remember one morning 


Five o'Clock in the Morning. 251 

ftt six o’clock to have been overtaken by a carriage 
that drew up beside me. I recognized the coach- 
man, who touched his hat apologetically, as if he 
wished me to understand that he was not at all re- 
sponsible for the condition of his master, and I went 
to the door of the carriage. I was astonished to 
find two young friends of mine, in correct evening 
dress, reclining on each other ’s shoulders and sleep- 
ing the sleep of the justly inebriated. I stated this 
fact to the coachman. Not a muscle of his well- 
trained face answered to my smile. But he said : 
“ You see, sir, we ’ve been out all night, and more 
than four blocks below they saw you, and wanted 
me to hail you, but you know you stopped to speak 
to a gentleman, and so I sorter lingered, and I drove 
round the block once or twice, and I guess I ’ve 
got ’em quiet again.” I looked in the carriage 
door once more on these sons of Belial. They 
were sleeping quite unconsciously. A bouttonniere 
in the lappel of the younger one’s coat had shed its 
leaves, which were scattered over him with a ridicu- 
lous suggestion of the “ Babes in the Wood,” and I 
closed the carriage door softly. “I suppose I’d 
better take ’em home, sir ? ” queried the coachman, 
gravely. “ Well, yes, John, perhaps you had.” 

There is another picture in my early rising ex- 
perience that I wish was as simply and honestly 
'udicrous. It was at a time when the moral senti- 


252 


Drift from Two Shores. 


ment of the metropolis, expressed through ordi- 
nance and special legislation, had declared itself 
against a certain form of “ variety ” entertainment, 
and had, as usual, proceeded against the performers, 
and not the people who encouraged them. 1 re- 
member, one frosty morning, to have encountered in 
Washington Park my honest friend Sergeant X. 
and Roundsman 9999 conveying a party of these 
derelicts to the station. One of the women, evi- 
dently, had not had time to change her apparel, 
and had thinly disguised the flowing robe and loose 
cestus of Venus under a ragged “ waterproof ; ” 
while the other, who had doubtless posed for Mer- 
cury, hid her shapely tights in a plaid shawl, and 
changed her winged sandals for a pair of “ arctics.” 
Their rouged faces were streaked and stained with 
tears. The man who was with them, the male of 
their species, had but hastily washed himself of his 
Ethiopian presentment, and was still black behind 
the ears ; while an exaggerated shirt collar and 
frilled shirt made his occasional indignant profanity 
irresistibly ludicrous. So they fared on over the 
glittering snow, against the rosy sunlight of the 
square, the gray front of the University building, 
with a few twittering sparrows in the foreground, 
beside the two policemen, quiet and impassive as 
fate. I could not help thinking of the distinguished 
A., the most fashionable B., the wealthy and re* 


Five o'Clock in the Morning. 253 


ipectable C., the sentimental D., and the man ot 
the world E., who were present at the performance, 
whose distinguished patronage had called it into 
life, and who were then resting quietly in their 
beds, while these haggard servants of their pleas- 
aunce were haled over the snow to punishment and 
ignominy. 

Let me finish by recalling one brighter picture 
of that same season. It was early ; so early that 
the cross of Grace Church had, when I looked up, 
just caught the morning sun, and for a moment 
flamed like a crusader’s symbol. And then the 
grace and glory of that exquisite spire became 
slowly visible. Fret by fret the sunlight stole 
slowly down, quivering and dropping from each, 
until at last the whole church beamed in rosy radi- 
ance. Up and down the long avenue the street lay 
in shadow ; by some strange trick of the atmosphere 
the sun seemed to have sought out only that grace- 
ful structure for its blessing. And then there was 
a dull rumble. It was the first omnibus, — the 
first throb in the great artery of the reviving city 
I looked up. The church was again in shadow. 


WITH THE ENTRIES. 


NCE, when I was a pirate !” — 

The speaker was an elderly gentle- 
man in correct evening dress, the room 
a tasteful one, the company of infinite respectabil- 
ity, the locality at once fashionable and exclusive, 
the occasion an unexceptionable dinner. To this 
should be added that the speaker was also the host. 

With these conditions self-evident, all that good 
breeding could do was to receive the statement 
with a vague smile that might pass for good-hu- 
mored incredulity or courteous acceptation of a 
simple fact. Indeed, I think we all rather tried 
to convey the impression that our host, when he 
was a pirate, — if he ever really was one, — was all 
that a self-respecting pirate should be, and never 
violated the canons of good society. This idea 
was, to some extent, crystallized by the youngest 
Miss Jones in the exclamation, “ Oh, how nice ! ” 

“ It was, of course, many years ago, when I was 
quite a lad.” 

We all murmured “ Certainly,” as if piracy were 
a natural expression of the exuberance of youth. 



With the Entries. 255 

“I ought, perhaps, explain the circumstances that 
ted me into this way of life.” 

Here Legrande, a courteous attache of the 
Patagonian legation, interposed in French and an 
excess of politeness, “ that it was not of a neces- 
sity,” a statement to which his English neighbor 
hurriedly responded, “ Oui , oui .” 

“ There ess a boke,” he continued, in a well-bred, 
rapid whisper, “ from Captain Canot, — a French- 
man, — most eenteresting — he was — oh, a fine man 
of education — and what you call a ‘ slavair,’ ” but 
here he was quietly nudged into respectful silence. 

“ I ran away from home,” continued our host. 
He paused, and then added, appealingly, to the two 
distinguished foreigners present : “ I do not know 
if I can make you understand that this is a pecul- 
iarly American predilection. The exodus of the 
younger males of an American family against the 
parents’ wishes does not, with us, necessarily carry 
any obloquy with it. To the average American 
the prospect of fortune and a better condition lies 
outside of his home ; with you the home means the 
estate, the succession of honors or titles, the surety 
that the conditions of life shall all be kept intact. 
With us the children who do not expect, and gen- 
ially succeed in improving the fortunes of the 
uouse, are marked exceptions. I)o I make myself 
clear ? ” 


256 


Drift from Two Shores. 


The French-Patagonian attach^ thought it was 
“ charming and progressif.” The Baron Yon Pret- 
zel thought he had noticed a movement of that 
kind in Germany, which was expressed in a single 
word of seventeen syllables. Viscount Piccadilly 
said to his neighbor: “That, you know now, the 
younger sons, don’t you see, go to Australia, you 
know in some beastly trade — stock-raising or sheep 
— you know ; but, by Jove ! them fellahs ” — 

“ My father always treated me well,” continued 
our host. “ I shared equally with my brothers the 
privileges and limitations of our New England home. 
Nevertheless, I ran away and went to sea ” — 

“To see — what?” asked Legrande. 

“ Alter sur mer , ” said his neighbor, hastily. 

“ Go on with your piracy ! ” said Miss Jones. 

The distinguished foreigners looked at each other 
and then at Miss Jones. Each made a mental note 
of the average cold-blooded ferocity of the young 
American female. 

“ I shipped on board of a Liverpool ‘ liner, ’ ” 
continued our host. 

“What ess a ‘liner?’” interrupted Legrande, 
sotto voce , to his next neighbor, who pretended not 
to hear him. 

“ I need not say that these were the days when 
we had not lost our carrying trade, when America® 
bottoms ” — 


With the UntrSes. 


257 


44 Que es( ce , 4 bot toom,’ ” said Legrande, implor- 
ingly, to his other friend. 

44 When American bottoms still carried the bulk 
of freight, and the supremacy of our flag ” — 

Here Legrande recognized a patriotic sentiment 
and responded to it with wild republican enthusi- 
asm, nodding his head violently. Piccadilly no- 
ticed it, too, and, seeing an opening for some gen- 
eral discussion on free trade, began half audibly to 
his neighbor : 44 Most extraordinary thing, you know, 
your American statesmen ” — 

44 1 deserted the ship at Liverpool ” — 

But here two perfunctory listeners suddenly 
turned toward the other end of the table, where 
another guest, our Nevada Bonanza lion, was 
evidently in the full flood of pioneer anecdote and 
narration. Calmly disregarding the defection, he 
went on: — 

44 1 deserted the ship at Liverpool in consequence 
of my ill-treatment by the second mate, — a man 
selected for his position by reason of his superior 
physical strength and recognized brutality. I have 
been since told that he graduated from the state 
prison. On the second day out I saw him strike a 
man senseless with a belaying pin for some trifling 
breach of discipline. I saw him repeatedly beat 
and kick sick men ” — 

u Did you ever read Dana’s 4 Two Years before 
17 


258 


Drift from Two Shores. 


the Mast ? ’ ” asked Lightbody, our heavy literary 
man, turning to his neighbor, in a distinctly audible 
whisper. “ Ah ! there ’s a book ! Got all this sort 
of thing in it. Dev’lishly well written, too.” 

The Patagonian (alive for information) : u Who 
ess this Dana, eh ? ” 

His left hand neighbor (shortly) : “ Oh, that 
man ! ” 

His right hand neighbor (curtly) : “ The fellah 
who wrote the Encyclopaedia and edits * The Sun ? ’ ” 
that was put up in Boston for the English mission 
and did n’t get it. ” 

The Patagonian (making a mental diplomatic 
note of the fact that the severe discipline of the 
editor of “ The Sun,” one of America’s profoundest 
scholars, while acting from patriotic motives, as the 
second mate of an American “ bottom,” had unfitted 
him for diplomatic service abroad) : “ Ah, del ! ” 

“ I wandered on the quays for a day or two, until 
I was picked up by a Portuguese sailor, who, inter- 
esting himself in my story, offered to procure me a 
passage to Fayal and Lisbon, where, he assured me, 
I could find more comfortable and profitable means 
of returning to my own land. Let me say here that 
this man, although I knew him afterward as one ol 
the most unscrupulous and heartless of pirates, — 
in fact, the typical buccaneer of the books, — was 
to me always kind, considerate, and, at times, even 


With the EntrSes. 


259 


tender. He was a capital seaman. I give this evi- 
dence in favor of a much ridiculed race, who have 
been able seamen for centuries.” 

“ Did you ever read that Portuguese Guide- 
book ? ” asked Lightbody of his neighbor ; “ it ’s the 
most exquisitely ridiculous thing ” — 

“ Will the great American pirate kindly go on, 
or resume his original functions,” said Miss Jones, 
over the table, with a significant look in the direc- 
tion of Lightbody. But her anxiety was instantly 
misinterpreted by the polite and fair-play loving 
Englishman : “ I say, now, don’t you know that the 
fact is these Portuguese fellahs are always ahead of 
us in the discovery business? Why, you know” — 
“ I shipped with him on a brig, ostensibly bound 
to St. Kitts and a market. We had scarcely left 
port before I discovered the true character of the 
vessel. I will not terrify you with useless details. 
Enough that all that tradition and romance has 
given you of the pirate’s life was ours. Happily, 
through the kindness of my Portuguese friend, I 
was kept from being an active participant in scenes 
of which I was an unwilling witness. But I must 
always bear my testimony to one fact. Our disci- 
pline, our esprit du corps , if I may so term it, was 
perfect. No benevolent society, no moral organiza- 
tion, was ever so personally self-sacrificing, so hon- 
estly loyal to one virtuous purpose, as we were to 


260 


Drift from Two Shores. 


our one vice. The individual was always merged 
in the purpose. When our captain blew out the 
brains of our quartermaster, one day ” — 

“ That reminds me — did you read of that Geor- 
gia murder ? ” began Lightbody ; “ it was in all the 
papers I think. Oh, I beg pardon ” — 

“ F or simply interrupting him in a conversation 
with our second officer,” continued our host, quietly. 
“ The act, although harsh and perhaps unnecessarily 
final, was, I think, indorsed by the crew. James, 
pass the champagne to Mr. Lightbody.” 

He paused a moment for the usual casual inter- 
ruption, but even the active Legrande was silent. 

Alas ! from the other end of the table came the 
voice of the Bonanza man : — 

“The rope was around her neck. Well, gentle- 
men, that Mexican woman standing there, with that 
crowd around her, eager for her blood, dern my 
skin ! if she did n’t call out to the sheriff to hold on 
a minit. And what fer? Ye can’t guess ! Why, 
one of them long braids she wore was under the 
noose, and kinder in the way. I remember her 
raising her hand to her neck and givin’ a spiteful 
sort of jerk to the braid that fetched it outside the 
slip-knot, and then saying to the sheriff : ‘ There, 
d— n ye, go on.’ There was a sort o’ thoughtful- 
ness in the act, a kind o’ keerless, easy way, that 
i ; st fetched the boys — even them thet hed the 


With the Entries . 


261 


rope in their hands, and they” — (suddenly recog- 
nizing the silence) : “ Oh, beg pardon, old man ; 
didn’t know I ’d chipped into your yarn — heave 
ahead ; don’t mind me.” 

“ What I am trying to tell you is this : One 
night, in the Caribbean Sea, we ran into one of 
the Leeward Islands, that had been in olden time 
a rendezvous for our ship. We were piloted to our 
anchorage outside by my Portuguese friend, who 
knew the locality thoroughly, and on whose dexter- 
ity and skill we placed the greatest reliance. If 
anything more had been necessary to fix this cir 
cumstance in my mind, it would have been the fact 
that two or three days before he had assured me 
that I should presently have the means of honorable 
discharge from the pirate’s crew, and a return to my 
native land. A launch was sent from the ship to 
communicate with our friends on the island, who 
supplied us with stores, provisions, and general in- 
formation. The launch was manned by eight men, 
and officered by the first mate, — a grim, Puritan- 
ical, practical New Englander, if I may use such a 
term to describe a pirate, of great courage, experi- 
ence, and physical strength. My Portuguese friend, 
acting as pilot, prevailed upon them to allow me to 
accompany the party as coxswain. I was naturally 
anxious, you can readily comprehend, to see ” — 

“ Certainly,” “ Of course,” “ Why should n’t 
^ou ? ” went round the table. 


262 Drift from Two Shores. 

“ Two trustworthy men were sent ashore with 
instructions. We, meanwhile, lay off the low, palm- 
fringed beach, our crew lying on their oars, or giv- 
ing way just enough to keep the boat’s head to the 
breakers. The mate and myself sat in the stern 
sheets, looking shoreward for the signal. The night 
was intensely black. Perhaps for this reason never 
before had I seen the phosphorescence of a tropical 
sea so strongly marked. From the great open be- 
yond, luminous crests and plumes of pale fire lifted 
themselves, ghost-like, at our bows, sank, swept by 
us with long, shimmering, undulating trails, broke 
on the beach in silvery crescents, or shattered their 
brightness on the black rocks of the promontory. 
The whole vast sea shone and twinkled like an- 
other firmament, against which the figures of our 
men, sitting with their faces toward us, were out- 
lined darkly. The grim, set features of our first 
mate, sitting beside me, were faintly illuminated. 
There was no sound but the whisper of passing 
waves against our lap-streak, and the low, murmur- 
ing conversation of the men. I had my face toward 
the shore. As I looked over the glimmering ex- 
panse, I suddenly heard the whispered name of 
our first mate. As suddenly, by the phosphorescent 
light that surrounded it, I saw the long trailing hair 
and gleaming shoulders of a woman floating beside 
ns. Legrande, you are positively drinking nothing 


With the Entries. 263 

Lightbody, you are shirking the Burgundy — you 
used to like it ! ” 

He paused, but no one spoke. 

“ I — let me see ! where was I ? Oh, yes ! Well, 
I saw the woman, and when I turned to call the 
attention of the first mate to this fact, I knew in- 
stantly, by some strange instinct, that he had seen 
and heard her, too. So, from that moment to the 
conclusion of our little drama, we were silent, but 
enforced spectators. 

“ She swam gracefully — silently ! I remember 
noticing through that odd, half-weird, phosphores- 
cent light which broke over her shoulders as she 
rose and fell with each quiet stroke of her splen- 
idly rounded arms, that she was a mature, per- 
fectly-formed woman. I remember, also, that when 
she reached the boat, and, supporting herself with 
one small hand on the gunwale, she softly called 
the mate in a whisper by his Christian name, I had 
a boyish idea that she was — the — er — er — fe- 
male of his species — his — er — natural wife ! I ’m 
boring you — am I not ? ” 

Two or three heads shook violently and nega- 
tively. The youngest, and, I regret to say, the 
oldest, Miss Jones uttered together sympathetically, 
“ Go on — please ; do ! ” 

u The — woman told him in a few rapid words 
Vhat he had been betrayed ; that the two men sent 


264 Drift from Two Shores . 

ashore were now in the hands of the authorities, 
that a force was being organized to capture the 
vessel ; that instant flight was necessary, and that 
the betrayer and traitor was — my friend, the Por- 
tuguese, Fernandez ! 

“ The mate raised the dripping, little brown band 
to his lips, and whispered some undistinguishable 
words in her ear. I remember seeing her turn a 
look of ineffable love and happiness upon his grim, 
set face, and then she was gone. She dove as a 
duck dives, and I saw her shapely head, after a 
moment’s suspense, reappear a cable’s length away 
toward the shore. 

“ I ventured to raise my eyes to the mate’s face ; 
it was cold and impassive. I turned my face to- 
ward the crew ; they were conversing in whispers 
with each other, with their faces toward us, yet 
apparently utterly oblivious of the scene that had 
just taken place in the stern. There was a moment 
of silence, and then the mate’s voice came out 
quite impassively, but distinctly : — 

444 Fernandez !’ 

44 4 Aye, aye, sir ! * 

44 4 Come aft and — bring your oar with you.* 

44 He did so, stumbling over the men, who, en- 
gaged in their whispered yarns, did n’t seem to 
notice him. 

44 4 See if you can find soundings here.’ 


With the Entrees. 


265 


“ Fernandez leaned over the stern and dropped 
his oar to its shaft in the phosphorescent water. 
But he touched no bottom ; the current brought 
the oar at right angles presently to the surface. 

“ ‘ Send it down, man,’ said the mate, impera- 
tively ; 4 down, down. Reach over there. What are 
you afraid of ? So ; steady there ; I ’ll hold you/ 

“ Fernandez leaned over the stern and sent the 
oar and half of his bared brown arm into the water. 
In an instant the mate caught him with one tre- 
mendous potential grip at his elbows, and forced 
him and his oar head downward in the waters. 
The act was so sudden, yet so carefully premedi- 
tated, that no outcry escaped the doomed man. 
Even the launch scarcely dipped her stern to the 
act. In that awful moment I heard a light laugh 
from one of the men in response to a wanton yarn 
from his comrade. James, bring the Vichy to 
Mr. Lightbody ! You ’ll find that a dash of cog- 
nac will improve it wonderfully. 

“Well — to go on — a few bubbles arose to the 
surface. Fernandez seemed unreasonably passive, 
until I saw that when the mate had gripped his 
elbows with his hands he had also firmly locked the 
traitor’s knees within his own. In a few moments 
— it seemed to me, then, a century — the mate’s 
grasp relaxed ; the body of Fernandez, a mere limp, 
ieaden mass, slipped noiselessly and heavily into 


266 Drift from Two Shores. 

the sea. There was no splash. The ocean took 
it calmly and quietly to its depths. The mate 
turned to the men, without deigning to cast a glance 
on me. 

“ ‘ Oars ! ’ 

“ The men raised their oars apeak. 

“‘Let fall ! * 

“ There was a splash in the water, encircling the 
boat in concentric lines of molten silver. 

“ ‘ Give way ! ’ 

“Well, of course, that’s all! We got away in 
time. I knew I bored you awfully ! Eh ? Oh, you 
want to know what became of the woman — really, 
I don’t know ! And myself — oh, I got away at 
Havana ! Eh ? Certainly ; James, you ’ll find some 
smelling salts in my bureau. Gentlemen, I fear we 
have kept the ladies too long.” 

But they had already risen, and were slowly fil- 
ing out of the room. Only one lingered — the 
youngest Miss Jones. 

“ That was a capital story,” she said, pausing 
beside our host, with a special significance in her 
usual audacity. “Do you know you absolutely sent 
cold chills down my spine a moment ago. Really, 
now, you ought to write for the magazines ! ” 

Our host looked up at the pretty, audacious face 
Then he said, sotto voce, — 

“Idol” 






































































































